So green technology is not always so green, is it? But what are we to do. In an article on migration in the latest National Geographic there is a startlingly sad image: all these bodies laid out on the page like butterflies in a collection, 32 dead bats, 4 dead songbirds and 1 dead red-tailed hawk, the average yearly victims of a wind turbine farm of 23 turbines. The biggest wind farm in America is in Texas, with 400 turbines, so the average death rate there would be about 512 bats, 16 hawks and 64 songbirds! A drop in air pressure from the spinning blades causes most of the deaths.
Aaaargh! Why are there so many problems associated with seemingly good ways of doing things?
I have been following the Biodiversity conference in Nagoya for the last two weeks, my heart at times in my mouth, and always a dull ache of worry in my stomach. There has been some argument about what percentage of the sea and the land to put aside as protected. The proposal was for 20% of both, which is a very small percentage, infinitesimally small for the sea, especially considering how large the ocean is, and how much trouble it is in, for example, not one sector of the ocean is unpolluted by some form of plastic.
They have, after a lengthy plenary session which went on until 2 am this morning, come to an agreement about which some environmentalists are pleased. 17% of the world's terrestrial and inland water areas, and only 10% of the ocean is to be protected, however, which is very, very sad.
And even so, will they follow through with all these decisions and promises? Previous such gatherings have produced wonderful ideas, commitment and affirmations, but the old careless status quo still prevails in most parts of the world regarding threatened species galloping towards extinction, etc.
It is Halloween. Here in America, children dress up in disguises and walk around to the houses in their neighbourhoods, the aim of which is to collect pounds and pounds of candy, which has been sold in stores for months for this very purpose. We live up such a long dark steep driveway that no children ever come up here, which saves me buying all those ridiculous sweets.
Halloween is derived from an ancient Celtic harvest celebration, Samhain, where because the plants and trees were in the process of "dying", it was believed that the boundary between the living and the dead became much thinner around this time. It was the end of the "lighter half" of the year and the beginning of the "darker half".
At school today everyone had to dress up and pay a dollar for the privilege, to raise money for a charity. I racked my brain for an idea, something home-made and easy, and finally came up with Frida Kahlo, the Mexican painter famous for all her self-portraits addressing the pain of her life and the experience of being a woman. She wore wonderfully colourful clothing and had a unibrow, so it was easy.
It is amazing to what degrees some kids go, and how much some parents will pay for costumes, like a Star Wars storm trooper, or a vampire bat with the most delicate and beautifully made wings. Interesting to see what each kid decides to be, and to hear the teachers talking about them in the faculty room. I like the inventive ones, like the chimney sweep, or the farmer, or the astronaut. I loathe that so many girls dress up as sexually provocative witches or some other costume where everything hangs out! I suppose this means I have joined the older generation. I have nothing against sexuality, I just hate seeing girls blindly following the kind of slutty examples bombarding them everywhere in popular culture.
And I did take a photographic self-portrait dressed as Frida, but it will have to wait until tomorrow to be uploaded, as I have now fetched my tired husband aka "The Computer Wiz" and we are now taking the journey "up the wooden hill" as my dad used to say, and off to bed.
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