Killing Our Environment and Killing Ourselves

Why is it that human beings have such an exaggerated appetite for death and destruction? This appetite includes an obvious innate desire to limit our opportunities for survival on this planet. We better hope those astro-scientist types work out practical ways for us to live elsewhere in the universe or we will soon be victims of our own excesses.

What inspired this not so cheery post is a press release from the UN that highlights the human race's propensity to destroy its environment means the likelihood of finding cures to modern diseases decreases as rapidly as the natural environment that we destroy on a daily basis.

An example of this is the Rheobatrachus or the Southern Gastric Brooding frog which was thought to produce substances that slowed acid and enzyme excretions which are a main cause of peptic ulcers! Nah, bugger me if we haven't gone and made this poor little frog extinct and with it the possibility of finding and developing a treatment for the prevention of peptic ulcers - idiots!

Just the possibility that the cure for cancer or HIV/AIDS is just sitting there out in the environment there waiting to be discovered must become motivation enough for us as a people to protect the biodiversity that we have left.

Climate change, stripping away of natural resources, environmental degradation, and the like are real and we each need to start playing our little parts in turning the tide against what will ultimately lead to our destruction!

This would be the ultimate irony for those that believe in God our ability to destroy that which was given us! It would also be the ultimate vindication for evolutionists as the cycle of life and death would fit nicely into the evolution theory of humans coming into existence and ultimately being evoluted out of existence.

Mt. Merapi

Following on from the previous post I also had the chance to get up to the foothills surrounding Mt. Merapi whilst in that part of the world. I also had not been to Mt. Merapi for an even longer time than the amount of time since I was last in Yogya. So, long in fact that there has been an eruption or two since I was last there.

Climbing Mt. Merapi is on my bucket list and as I am now moving into the "you're an old bastard" list as well, it is high time I organized this otherwise the bucket will get up the mountain before I do.

The last eruption took a few lives and destroyed a good deal of property. But as I was standing there on the now hard and dry lava bed I wondered why it is that people think they can go up against mother earth and win. It really is a case of when Mother earth gets going, the tough might stay, but the smart get going!

Local Knowledge or Plain Stupid?

Mt. Kelud located in East Java has been on heightened alert for the past two weeks as volcanic and seismic activity has been increasing. The suggestions of the meteorological heads is that an eruption is imminent. Most recent reports say that in the last 24 hours the water temperature of the crater lake has increased a significant 25 degrees. Apparently a surge in temperature of this me is indicative of magma getting close to the surface and consequently it is also indicative of a possible eruption.

The Government has ordered an evacuation but it is thought that some 25,000 inhabitants have decided to play a little bit of Russian Roulette and are refusing to leave. The Government has also sort to put in place a 10km exclusion zone, but as with anything else in Indonesia, enforcement is the key and there appears that there has been little or no enforcement of the exclusion zone. Yet, the Government seems to be relying on the belief that they cannot force people to leave and if people want to stay then the outcome is not the responsibility of the Government.

Many locals are of the belief that they have experienced Kelud eruptions in the past and have excellent local knowledge as to where the lahar (a combination or mud, rock, and ash) if the volcano erupts. The question as to why stay when there is obvious and imminent danger; simply, who will tend the crops and the livestock if everyone flees. When it is all said and done, one still has to make a living and probably support a large and extended family.

Aside from this the villager have reverted to their traditional beliefs that if they are respectful of the mountain the mountain will be respectful of them. This means that villagers ensure the turning off of all lights and conversation is but a whisper.

Only time will tell if this local knowledge will trump the apparent foolishness of going head-to-head with mother nature and her fury!

The Child of Krakatau

Well, building bridges across the Sunda Strait was always going to be an interesting engineering challenge and not just because any bridge built there would be straddling one of the world's most active earthquake zones! The planned bridge would run within some 50 kilometers of the volcano that has arisen from where the old Krakatau volcano once stood and for want of a better name it has simply been named the Child of Krakatau.

It is one of those funny in a bizarre coincidence sort of a way. I watched a national geographic program on the Krakatau eruption a couple of weeks ago. The sentiment seemed to be that the Child of Krakatau, although not currently as big as its parent, had similar explosive potential and that in and of itself should be a frightful thought for anyone living in Southern Sumatra, Lampung, or West Java. The bizarre coincidence is that the watch alert on the Child of Krakatau has been raised as volcanic and seismic activity of the past week has seen a huge increase, which if the seismologists are to be believed is indicative of a possible larger eruption in addition to the multiple minor eruptions to date.

I can accept that nature is a powerful force and do not need to have this proved to me again. Is it just a simple case of the natural order of things where the earth restores balance to itself? Perhaps it is an inconvenient truth but what we should never forget...

perhaps we should be a little nicer to Mother Earth and She might be a little nicer to us!