Poach the poachers

The Rhino is in danger of extinction, owing to illegal poaching, for its horn, which is believed to have medicinal value, in Chinese medicine. Indeed, so strong is this belief that Rhino horn is now selling at 65,000 USD per kilogram – and all for nothing more than a pile of keratin (found in fingernails everywhere).

Leaving aside the undoubted fact that, in truth there is NO medicinal value to Rhino horn, in any way at all...just a tradition of stupidity surrounding it...I am left startled that scientists assaying the problem of what to do about the illegal Rhino trade have suggested legalizing it. This way, they argue, cheaper, legal Rhino horn can be provided from farms, without killing the animals, and this would somehow, magically, end the illegal trade. Of course, it is likely to just make illegal Rhino harvesting (along with the killing of the Rhinos) easier to pursue, for now it would have no consequences.

Let us examine what a Rhino poacher does when he kills a Rhino. There are just 5,000 Black Rhinos and 20,000 White Rhinos left in the world. So, when a poacher kills a White Rhino he (as the poacher is probably male), he will have killed one twenty thousandth of a species. So, too, if he kills a Black Rhino, he will have killed one five thousandth of a species. Consider what that means for a moment. What would we do to a person who killed one twenty thousandth of the human species? That would be 350,000 people. Or how about someone who killed one five thousandth of the human species...that would be 1,400,000 people. What would we do with such a person?

We would send in special forces to kill them. That is what we would do. So, I wish to suggest that we do the same for anyone who kills such a proportion of an endangered species. We should, quite simply poach the poachers.

I wonder why we don’t do this, automatically. My only answer is that the developed powers just don’t care enough about endangered species to hunt down and kill their killers. We should, however, be doing just that. If someone cares so little about life on this planet, that they are prepared to exterminate a species, they should, themselves, be subject to extermination. That, to me, seems a fair and reasonable – and JUST stand on the issue. A poacher is forever diminishing Nature, by being one of those who drive species to extinction. They should not be tolerated, but should be eliminated.

To my mind it is a simple equation. The life of a cold hearted, even evil, poacher is not worth one twenty thousandth of the lives of another species of higher animal. They should be killed – and killed in such a public way, that it dissuades other would be poachers from poaching.

I would be prepared to believe that a developed nation cares about the future of planet Earth, if it sends its special forces out after poachers, in less developed nations who don’t have the means to deal with it. Let us hear, instead, not the death statistics of yet another endangered species in its death throes – but a daily tally of the number of poachers killed, in the name of saving those species. Were this to be covered in the news, on a regular basis, word would eventually filter through to those inclined to poach that “Poaching is a BAD idea.”

This is the only effective way left to save these species in the wild.

Poach the poachers, to save the world.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.) 

Saving the world from fossil fuels.

We have all heard of global warming. Most of us understand that the primary culprit for causing global warming is the burning of fossil fuels. The science is simple: whenever carbon based fossil fuels are burnt, carbon dioxide is produced. This is a greenhouse gas – that is, a gas which helps trap heat, in the atmosphere and prevent it leaving into space. Carbon dioxide acts as a kind of blanket on the Earth, warming it up.

Now, we live in challenging times. All around the world developing countries such as India and China, Indonesia and Brazil, are racing to “catch up” with the West, specifically America, in energy consumption and “lifestyle”. There seems to be the belief that the best way to live, the only way to live, is to somehow adopt the extraordinarily energetically wasteful lifestyle of the modern American. Everyone wants to be an “American”. They even style their cities after American ones (that is filling them with skyscrapers, “freeways” and shopping malls).

Yet, there is a problem with this. The Earth cannot support several new Americas. In fact, if the truth be known, the Earth cannot support even ONE America. The American way of life is a destructive one. It is a way of life which opposes and undermines life on Earth. To live like an American, is to destroy the world. If the world’s developing economies continue to attempt to emulate the American way of life, the world is headed for complete disaster, in a very short order. It is impossible for the billions of people, in the developing world, to start using the amounts of energy and resources that Americans do, without hastening an environmental disaster that threatens life on Earth. Quite simply: for the developing world to “catch up” with America, it would have to burn enormous quantities of fossil fuel: oil, coal and natural gas, to furnish the energies for this lifestyle. Or at least, that would be the most obvious way of doing it. The problem with this, is that the CO2 concentrations in the Earth’s atmosphere would rise rapidly, pushing up global temperatures, changing weather patterns, causing desertification, crop loss, flooding and an untold number of changes, all of which would make life more challenging on this Earth, not only for humans, but for all life.

The developing world needs to learn a lesson that America, itself, has yet to learn: a wise use of energy and resources. The developing world needs to look at the American way of life and society and realize that America is one big mistake. The developing world needs to look at America and understand, by its example, how NOT to structure a society and an economy. These are the kinds of lessons that could save the world.

It is perfectly possible to have a very high standard of life, without using American sized energies. Typical Europeans, for instance, use about half the energy of Americans. As an example, the average UK citizen, uses 3,918 kilogrammes of oil equivalent, per annum. The average American uses 7,795 kilogrammes of oil equivalent, per annum. Now, the lifestyle of the typical UK citizen is more than adequate enough. It is needless to pursue an American path, with twice the energy, to attain a decent life. Presently, China is using 1138 kilogrammes of oil equivalent, per capita, per year. (All figures from 2003). Again, the Chinese lifestyle is pretty good and there seems no need to seek American sized energies, for its populace. It is both unnecessary, and would be too damaging for the Earth.

Instead of all the world’s economies racing to maximize development and become as alike the USA, as they can, by digging the world’s fossil fuels up, as fast as possible, there should, instead, be a different kind of race, underway: a race to leave the fossil fuels in the ground. That is right. A wise world would be racing AWAY from the use of fossil fuels – all of them – as fast as possible. In a wise world, governments would be racing to developing 100% renewable energy infrastructures, dependent on hydroelectricity, wind, solar, geothermal, primarily, along, perhaps with biomass and waste reprocessing. A 100% renewable energy infrastructure is one that is minimally polluting. It is also one that may be sustained indefinitely. Renewable energy infrastructures, will not only save the planet from global warming – but they will also save economies from collapse, when fossil fuels run out.

Thus, the world’s economies should now be competing to be as unlike the United States as possible. The world should be competing to be as free of fossil fuels as possible. That would be the wisest path. It is also the ONLY path that leads to a survivable Earth future.

To achieve this proposed alternative renewable economy, the world’s nations should be racing to implement a fully renewable alternative energy infrastructure as FAST as they can. This will protect them from rising fossil fuel prices and at the same time, will reduce the rate of global warming. The ultimate aim should be to wean the world’s economies off fossil fuels as early as possible and to end up LEAVING billions of tons of fossil fuels IN THE GROUND, NEVER TO BE USED.

Now, it is clear that the world’s oil companies will fight hard to persuade people to buy their oil – and so too the coal miners and the natural gas purveyors – however the world should resist. There should be no burning of fossil fuels. The only use of fossil fuels should be in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, pesticides, plastics, fertilizers and the like. It should no longer be used as fuel.

What is needed is a 100% renewable energy infrastructure around the world with electric cars, trains and buses for transport. In no part of this system, should fossil fuels be used for energy.

Some will object that this is too difficult an aim to achieve. However, it must be realized that fossil fuels are running out, so the proposed system will eventually be the ONLY real possibility, if we are to sustain a semblance of the present way of life. It is better to implement this system, now, whilst the fossil fuels remain and ensure that much of the remaining fossil fuels are never burnt. This will reduce global warming and make it more likely that humanity will survive the inevitable climate changes to come.

So: leave the fossil fuels in the ground – and ensure that all the energy used, in society, is from a renewable source. That is the simple recipe for saving the world from fossil fuels – and global warming.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.).

On being young, in a dying world.

A few days ago, I asked Ainan to consider his place in the world, a few decades hence.

He gazed headlong within, at that unborn future.

He pursed his lips a little.

"A few decades from now, there will be no more humans left," he opined unmournfully. There was in him an acceptance of the inevitable.

He looked up at me, as if knowing I would need an explanation.

"Because they are depleting the world's resources."

So bleak was the future he had painted, in so few words, that I felt I had to argue against him.

"Ainan, it won't happen so soon...", I began, but then petered out as I noted his expression.

He looked completely unmoved, not because he didn't want to be moved, but because of his certainty about the futureless future. He had judged the stupidity of Mankind and found it vast. He also knew, in that helpless way of children everywhere, that there was nothing in his range of influence, that he, personally, could do, at this time, to forestall that future, to make it into a better one. He could only stand by and watch, whilst the "adults" destroyed the world in which he lived.

The thing is, of course, he is right. Unless Mankind does change its ways, Ainan's apocalyptic future, will be the only one Mankind will know. The remarkable thing about Man, is that although individually, people can be very bright, collectively, nothing is more stupid than Mankind. The reason for this is clear. Most of us pursue immediate gain, in our daily actions, and never consider the long-term consequences of what we do. We only consider what we can get NOW. Very few of us consider what that means for tomorrow's world. So, collectively, we all act to destroy that tomorrow for a better today.

One day, too, too, late to do anything about it, Mankind will awaken from this self-deluding delirium and see that the consequences of its actions, are irreversible. Sadly, however, a hung man, cannot be unhung - and Man is busily hanging himself and his world with him.

I hope that wise boys, like Ainan, might grow to be wise men, who influence the mass actions of others, so that Mankind might change its collective ways, before our world is at an end. Otherwise, what is the point of bringing children into the world, who will have no adult world to live in? Do we really want to build an abyss for them to fall into?

So, do what you can, each and every day, to ensure that Ainan's dark future, never sees the light.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 6 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.htmlI also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)