News Review: Politics in Paris

Hey all! Thanks to everyone who looked at my recent blogs, it really means a lot to me, and I'm going to continue to reach out to more readers. This entry includes a few links to recent news stories, so here ya go:

Paris Climate Convention
The United Nations Conference on Climate Change (or COP21) is a unique opportunity for leaders around the world to meet in Paris and make monumental decisions on issues such as fossil fuel usage, carbon emissions, and financing the movement to end (or at least slow) global warming. The best explanation of the issues and their proposed solutions I've found in this article. "Long live the planet"! 

GrubHub Bans Shark Fins
The United States' leading online and mobile food ordering company has banned the sale of shark products on their site! They said, "this is the right choice to protect the world's endangered species,", and it's thanks to the group Oceana. Great job!! 

Lego League for Less Plastic Bags
For the year of 2015, my resolution was to use fewer plastic bags. I'll have more commentary on that in another blog, but the good thing is, I wasn't alone. Many individuals, and larger groups, have been moving to reusable bags. The titular link will bring you to an online petition by a club of schoolchildren vying to ban the use of plastic bags state-wide in Florida. According to Planet Ark, "Tens of thousands of whales, birds, seals and turtles are killed every year from plastic bag litter", so reducing the presence of plastic bags is an easy way to save lives. And, you know, we can put out an army of filtering trash cans in the ocean.... 

Ban on Microbeads 
On the subject of plastic, the Microbead Free Waters Act will prohibit the use of microbeads in beauty products in July 2017. Soaps and scrubs have these tiny pieces of plastic, usually for exfoliation, and they contaminate all sorts of water sources. What's more, they are consumed by animals and they can end up in the food chain. It's refreshing to see the government taking action against this environmental concern. 

Ivory meeting 
Prince William organized a meeting to discuss the transportation of banned wildlife products. In this meeting, China has sent a delegate, and why is this news? China is a key player in combating wildlife crime, and there is a great deal of progress we've seen already. For example, the value of raw ivory in China has halved in less than two years. Hopefully, this trend will continue. 

Thanks for reading everyone! 

Dose of Disney: Canines at Kilimanjaro

Hey folks! I know I haven't done a Disney blog in a while, but I can't help but mention this news: there are now hyenas and African wild dogs at Kilimanjaro Safari in Disney's Animal Kingdom! The Safari is a must-see attraction, featuring a variety of African animals, including my favorite, okapis! VIP-style tour guides take you along bumpy roads, through grasslands and jungle-type environments, giving you an up-close and magical experience that only Disney can offer. 

My front-row view on the Safari the last time I went (which was way too long ago!). 

So just this morning I read this article from AllEars.net, a great source of information for Disney fans. It says that the Safari has introduced hyenas and African wild dogs, which is great news! Hyenas have a reputation as being the bad guys, obviously from Disney's Lion King, but in reality are fantastic predators. Their jaws are so strong they can eat teeth, hooves, and bone! They are the most common carnivore in Africa, and just like in the movie, can make a vocalization that sounds like laughter. (More facts about hyenas can be found here.) 

"We;d love for you to stick around for dinner.." "Yeah, we could have whatever's lion around!" "Oh wait wait, I got one, make mine a cub sandwich!" 

African wild dogs, also called painted dogs, are certainly not as well-known as other African carnivores. Unfortunately, they are also endangered. According to IUCN Red List: "the causes of African Wild Dogs’ decline are reasonably well understood and include extreme sensitivity to habitat fragmentation as a consequence of wide-ranging behaviour, conflict with livestock and game farmers, accidental killing by people in snares and road accidents, and infectious disease. All of these causes are associated with human encroachment on African Wild Dog habitat and, as such, have not ceased and are unlikely to be reversible across the majority of the species’ historical range." Hopefully, having them at Kilimanjaro Safari will give the African wild dogs some much-needed attention and promote their conservation. 

Thanks for reading everyone! For more information on Disney and conservation, check out the Disney Conservation Fund and their work. More blogs to come soon, so stay tuned! 

Movie Review: "Racing Extinction"

Hey folks! Tonight I watched "Racing Extinction", an hour and a half television special. After seeing the previews, I was very excited to watch the show, and I have to say, it exceeded my expectations.

Within the first minute, my heart was racing. Images of elephant feet, jaguar heads- we're talking serious stuff here. Right off the bat, we're forced to face the facts:

"1 in a million species should expire each year, and right now, the rate of extinction is 1000 times faster than it should be. "

"It's like we're living in the age of dinosaurs, but we can do something about it."

"Humanity has become the asteroid"

The whole movie was just incredibly moving. I really enjoyed the fact that the animals they talked about are some of the lesser conservation topics- not that they are less important, but they are less popular. We always talk about pandas, rhinos, and tigers as poster children for conservation, but a lot of the issues are going on with oceanic animals. For example, they covered the story of how a sushi restaurant was shut down because it was serving endangered whale species. The biggest topic discussed explained the story of the manta ray, but, being that I have a hockey game to get to tonight, I'm going to save that for another blog entry. 


One of the other issues was about shark finning. Shark finning kills 250 thousand sharks every day, and we saw a heartbreaking film of a nurse shark with her fins cut off trying to swim, hanging on to her last moments of life. I almost broke my t.v. screen when, later on, a Chinese man said that video was made up by the "greenies". The good thing is that shark finning awareness has been improving, especially thanks to Mr. Yao Ming, whose WildAid commercial you can see here. 

The movie also talked a lot about climate change. There is a massive increase in CO2 going on right now, and the scary part?- that's a common factor in every single mass extinction in the history of the Earth. And we humans are not safe from that in any way. Right now, we are creating an acidic ocean- creatures simply dissolve in acid, and the movie proves that by putting shells in vinegar. Think about it. It's scary. This damage is caused by everyday activities- we're making our lives a lot better for us, but at the expense of everything else. A very interesting point was made: livestock is a huge problem. The methane released by livestock is arguable the biggest cause in this spike in CO2. So, the more dependent we are on meat, milk, and eggs, the greater the CO2. If everyone simply didn't eat meat for one day every week, it would be the equivalent of taking 7.6 million cars off the road. There's your New Years resolution, folks. 

On somewhat of a sidenote, it's also a very quotable movie. Try these on for size: 

"If we all lose hope, there is no hope...there's still a lot left that's worth fighting for."

"We need more people to understand it's worth doing, the small choices we make each day can lead to the kind of world we want for the future."

"We always think there's going to be somebody else to save these animals..." but "we're the only generation left to save these animals."

"Better light one candle than curse the darkness."

Ok, so here's the last paragraph of this blog, but don't think for a moment I'm done talking about this movie. All my coworkers will tell you, I still have a lot to say. I plan on writing more entries on some of the topics from the movie I didn't cover here, like the politics of conservation, and technology's role in public education. But long story short, this movie was phenomenal. The message: we have to keep fighting. Visit Startwith1thing.com  and commit to changing just one thing in your daily life to make a difference. Please, please, please watch this movie. It is so incredibly important to be aware of all these issues and battle them together. 

"Change starts in the heart."

Thanks for reading everybody! Stay tuned for more blogs soon, and visit A Voice For the Voiceless for a more in-depth look at the whale, shark, and manta issues in this movie.