Tsunami impact worsened by human impact?
Jeff McNeely, chief scientist of the Swiss-based World Conservation Union (IUCN), who lived for several years in Indonesia and Thailand, two of the countries hit by Sunday's disaster, said it was "nothing new for nature" in a geologically active region. "What has made this a disaster is that people have started to occupy part of the landscape that they shouldn't have occupied," he told AFP in a telephone interview from Paris. "Fifty years ago the coastline was not densely occupied as now by tourist hotels."
"What has also happened over the last several decades is that many mangroves have been cleared to grow shrimp ponds so that we, here in Europe, can have cheap shrimp," he added. "The mangroves were all along the coasts where there are shallow waters. They offered protection against things like tsunamis. Over the last 20-30 years, "they were cleared by people who didn't have the long-term knowledge of why these mangroves should have been saved, by outsiders who get concessions from the governments and set up shrimp or prawn farms." The shrimps and prawns are sold to Europeans and other foreigners "at a price that does not include the environmental cost which is being paid today," McNeely said.
"What has also happened over the last several decades is that many mangroves have been cleared to grow shrimp ponds so that we, here in Europe, can have cheap shrimp," he added. "The mangroves were all along the coasts where there are shallow waters. They offered protection against things like tsunamis. Over the last 20-30 years, "they were cleared by people who didn't have the long-term knowledge of why these mangroves should have been saved, by outsiders who get concessions from the governments and set up shrimp or prawn farms." The shrimps and prawns are sold to Europeans and other foreigners "at a price that does not include the environmental cost which is being paid today," McNeely said.
1/06/2005 01:32:00 pm: permalink
Using JConsole to Monitor Applications
From developers.sun.com: The Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SE) 5.0 release provides comprehensive monitoring and management support. It not only defines the management interfaces for the Java virtual machine, but also provides out-of-the-box remote monitoring and management on the Java platform and of applications that run on it. In addition, JDK 5.0 includes the Java Monitoring and Management Console (JConsole) tool. It uses the extensive instrumentation of the Java virtual machine to provide information on performance and resource consumption of applications running on the Java platform using Java Management Extension (JMX) technology. I haven't seen this feature of JDK5 mentioned before and it looks most useful...
1/06/2005 01:29:00 pm: permalink
CxxTest comes out top
Linux wireless driver for Centrino
After several months as a happy user of the Ndiswrapper Linux wireless driver (eventually!) I finally made the switch to the more specific IPW2200 Centrino driver. Based on first impressions the switch was worthwhile: it was easier to install, and has been quicker and more reliable in use.
1/05/2005 10:33:00 am: permalink
Killing versus helping
George Monbiot writes that "our leaders appear to have lost the ability to distinguish between helping people and killing them": The US government has so far pledged $350m to the victims of the tsunami, and the UK government £50m ($96m). The US has spent $148 billion on the Iraq war and the UK £6bn ($11.5bn). The war has been running for 656 days. This means that the money pledged for the tsunami disaster by the United States is the equivalent of one and a half days’ spending in Iraq. The money the UK has given equates to five and a half days of our involvement in the war.
It looks still worse when you compare the cost of the war to the total foreign aid budget. The UK has spent almost twice as much on creating suffering in Iraq as it spends annually on relieving it elsewhere. The United States gives just over $16bn in foreign aid: less than one ninth of the money it has burnt so far in Iraq.
It looks still worse when you compare the cost of the war to the total foreign aid budget. The UK has spent almost twice as much on creating suffering in Iraq as it spends annually on relieving it elsewhere. The United States gives just over $16bn in foreign aid: less than one ninth of the money it has burnt so far in Iraq.
1/04/2005 10:21:00 am: permalink
