2008-02-24 [Tickle Me Emo]: How big of a problem is that? I mean, I imagine in areas where water treatment isn't the greatest (or is nonexistent), birth control wouldn't necessarily be readily available, either...

2008-02-24 [The Monochrome Rainbow]: true, but even here in the US, where almost 25% of women take it, water treatment is less than perfect. and many areas may not have regulations about how thorough the job must be done. I visited a water treatment plant where i used to teach at a nature center, and the water they return to the source smells the same as id did when it came to the plant.

2008-02-24 [Tickle Me Emo]: I remember my marine bio teacher talking about water treatment... I don't think smell has anything to do with how appropriately treated the water is... Although typically the treated water they release is much more nutrient-rich than typical sea water, so there are a bunch of problems with plankton blooms, which affects the availability of light, etc. etc...

2008-02-24 [The Monochrome Rainbow]: well, it didn't look like they had done anything but remove the solids from it, which doesn't do a lot in the long run. regulations are pretty loose about how clean the water must be before it can be released.

2008-02-25 [Byne]: Ah, in areas of Canada, sewage is pumped into the ocean untreated. So in countries where water treatment (good treatment) is accessible and affordable...And they aren't doing it.... Yeah. Get my drift here?

I'm actually in the midsts of filming a documentary on water use and treatment. I'm about to go in and tour the water treatment plant here, in my town. I'm also talking to a hydroengineer....Or something similar. Can't remember the full name.

Its pure stupidity that is brining us to contaminate the small amount of fresh water we have. Hell, every country on the planet is currently dealing with shortages, even us. And we have the most fresh water in the world. Dx

2008-02-25 [The Monochrome Rainbow]: well, i bet the filter manufacturers are loving it. the dirtier our water gets, the more filters they sell to us so we can clean it up.

2008-02-25 [Byne]: Ah, but its getting to the point that what we're putting in the water is incredibly difficult to take out. x____o

2008-02-25 [The Monochrome Rainbow]: eventually, we'll learn. it might take a few defective babies, but we'll learn. Its just s shame the kids will have to pay for their another person's idiocy

2008-02-26 [Byne]: We are all going to pay for our own retarded actions. The chemicals we're putting into our bodies are not good. Why do you think the amount of cancer cases has risen so much?

Good news though. The Japanese whaling fleet down in the Southern seas hasn't been able to kill any whales for three days now. 83

2008-02-27 [The Monochrome Rainbow]: some countries never were good at conservation.

2008-02-27 [Tickle Me Emo]: I don't think it's limited to "countries"...

2008-02-27 [The Monochrome Rainbow]: people in general. some countries show more aptitude for conservation. Hawaii, before the invasion of the white man, knew conservation well. China hes never cared much if a species goes extinct. there are many endangered, and critically endangered species that are protected by weak and unenforced laws. a lot of animals still are poached for traditional Chinese remedies.

2008-02-27 [Byne]: I'd say its humanity on the whole.

They say that greed and hoarding and the likes are signs of greater intelligent. And for all our brains, we're turning into the grasshoppers who eat themselves to death. x___o

To me, the animals who only take what they need are WAY smarter than we are. I feel guilty all the time for the amount of things I buy that I don't need. v___v

2008-02-27 [The Monochrome Rainbow]: in Hawaii, there was a bird, and like most animals living on small island ecosystems, their existence is precarious at best. before the invasion of the white man, the birds thrived. They were also valued by the natives for their feathers, which were used to make cloaks for the Hawaiian royalty. rather than killing the birds, they captured them, took only one feather from each bird, then released them. The birds have since gone extinct, It is called the Hawaiian O'o (Moho nobilis) and went extinct in/around 1934.

2008-02-28 [Tickle Me Emo]: I would say it's modern humanity that is the primary culprit. There have always been certain people who have blended into the natural ecosystem, and I wouldn't say that none exist today. They just seem to be fewer. A lot fewer.

But it's all kinda like the Matrix, I think it's the second one, where Agent Smith is talking to a drugged Morpheus about humans being a virus... consuming all the resources an area has to offer before moving on. Good mind games, haha

2008-02-28 [The Monochrome Rainbow]: how accurate that is. it wasn't a problem when there were fewer of us, but with procreation as popular as it is, i guess parasite or tumor are good words to describe the species.

2008-02-29 [Byne]: Ah, on the topic of sharks.... 6 more species have been added to the Red List, some listed at the possible endangerment. The hammerhead, to be precise.

Also, the amount of shark attacks has risen over the past year, but due to human activity in the ocean, not because of sharks.

2008-02-29 [Tickle Me Emo]: I read on the NOAA site a while ago that shark attacks were less common than electrocutions due to Christmas lights. I've heard a lot of stats like that (which are often false), but you'd think NOAA would get it right...

The hammerhead is a really interesting shark... before my marine bio class, I didn't know it was one of only a few sharks that eat other sharks. Ignorant American that I am, haha

2008-02-29 [Byne]: Yep. Tiger, hammerhead and.....I can't remember the others. Not many though.

So....The world population is over 6.6 billion people. BILLION. And there were 71 shark attacks last year. Only 6% of those where fatal. So......Sharks bite 70 people a year....And we kill 200 million of them....

2008-02-29 [The Monochrome Rainbow]: yeah. that never made much sense to me. If I got bit by a shark, chances are, it was my fault (And I wouldn't blame the shark for doing it, any more than i would blame people for breathing). people forget that we are creatures that belong on land. we have neither fins nor gills, but i guess we think that if we are going to rape the planet, we might as well do a thorough job.

2008-03-01 [Tickle Me Emo]: Well, considering that we have actually explored an inifinitesimally small portion of the Earth's oceans, we thankfully haven't been all that thorough. Yet.

I've been trying to find reliable sources for statistics on sharks, especially in regards to attacks, but it's been hard because a lot of sites are complete bogus. Does anybody have a good source or two? Any media.

Did you hear about this researcher who was filming a show on bull sharks for a Shark Week, and when he was discussing how unlikely it was to be bitten by the sharks (even though they are one of the most aggressive species, especially towards humans) he got bitten in the calf. Which was incredibly ironic. But the point is, he was invading the environment in which creatures besides ourselves are more comfortable and (quite frankly) more dominant. The nice thing was they pointed that out in the program.