Lady Madonna

Here is a treat for you from 40 years ago.



"Lady Madonna" was released as a single in March 1968.

They don't make 'em like that any more:)

Fisheries waste insufficient for gannet chicks

A new report from the Royal Society says that gannets who feed their chicks on waste from fishing boats are giving them junk food.

The problem they discovered in the western cape of South Africa was that waste from the hake fisheries was too low in fat to sustain chicks. The gannet's natural food is high fat species like anchovies and sardines, but these species have become seriously depleted. While the waste from the hake helps maintain adult birds, chicks reared on this diet suffer much higher mortality rates than normal and far fewer chicks are fledged.

The full report concludes that

marine management policies should not assume that fishery waste is
generally beneficial to scavenging seabirds and that abundance of this artificial resource will automatically inflate seabird populations.

Peak Soil

George Monbiot makes some good points about fuel sources.

He cites a recent report that Peak Oil is upon us, and although environmentalists and geologists have being warning of this for some time, this new report is written by capitalists, so perhaps now governments may start to pay attention.

Growing biofuels to replace fossil fuel seems to getting a lot of criticism, and Monbiot says that land clearance for biofuels causes a massive increase in emissions, and creates a carbon debt that takes between 17 and 840 years to recoup.

An alternative is to use agricultural 'waste', but Alice Friedemann points out that this will likely result in Peak Soil.

For the love of Dog

Last week one of the main news stories in Nova Scotia was the discovery of nearly 100 cats and dogs being kept in appalling conditions at a private animal shelter. This is yet another reminder of the gross overpopulation of cats and dogs, many of which will end up homeless or at a shelter desperately hoping to find a loving home.

PETA have two videos on the subject which I'd like to share with you. The first talks about all the reasons why owners should have their pets neutered or speyed:




The second is a plea to get pets from a shelter rather than a pet store or breeder:


Learn more about PETA's ABC campaign at PETA.org.

Give up carbon for Lent

Christians in Britain are being urged to give up carbon for Lent and they can even download a 40 day calendar to help.

It's not a bad idea, but why just do it for Lent? But I do hope that it encourages people who don't already take these actions to begin doing so, all year round.