Folly of Man

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, when you look around and observe how we treat our environment, you come to the conclusion that we are very unwise. Homo perniciosus (‘destructive Man’) would be a much more appropriate name. Or maybe Man should be called: the most dangerous animal in the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The United Nations (UN) was founded in 1945 with the aim of “maintaining international peace and security, developing friendly relations among nations, achieving international cooperation, and being a center for harmonizing the actions of nations.” (Source: un.org)

All good intentions for the benefit of Mankind.

However, the UN has largely ignored the most important problem of all: population growth. Around 1800, the world population reached its first billion. It only took about 125 years to reach 2 billion around 1925, and then things went fast: 3 billion in 1960, 4 billion in 1974, 5 billion in 1987, 6 billion in 1999, and 7 billion in 2011.

Today we are almost 8 billion people, swarming like ants in most parts of the world, and the Earth is groaning under the massive impact from these immense crowds: forest clearing, soil erosion, desertification, mass extinction of plant and animal species, and a tremendous pollution of soil, water, and air, which contributes significantly to the climate change of recent years.

By largely ignoring population growth, the UN has failed completely.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(…)

Once again, we [the Indians] are pitifully behind the times – not just scientifically and technologically (ignore the hollow claims), but more pertinently in our ability to grasp the true nature of nuclear weapons. Our Comprehension of the Horror Department is hopelessly obsolete. Here we are, all of us in India and Pakistan, discussing the finer points of politics and foreign policy, behaving for all the world as though our governments have just devised a newer, bigger bomb, a sort of immense hand grenade, with which they will annihilate the enemy (each other) and protect us from all harm.

(…)

If there is a nuclear war, our foes will not be China or America or even each other. Our foe will be the Earth herself. The very elements – the sky, the air, the land, the wind and water – will all turn against us. Their wrath will be terrible.

(…)

‘These are not just nuclear tests, they are nationalism tests’, we were repeatedly told. This has been hammered home, over and over again. The bomb is India, India is the bomb. Not just India, Hindu India. Therefore, be warned, any criticism of it is not just anti-national, but anti-Hindu. (Of course, in Pakistan the bomb is Islamic. Other than that, politically, the same physics applies.) This is one of the unexpected perks of having a nuclear bomb. Not only can the Government use it to threaten the Enemy, it can use it to declare war on its own people. Us.”

 

 

You may be convinced of the glories of the Thar Desert by reading the pages Travel episodes – India 1986: “Sir, would you like to see this peacock?” and India 2003: Camel safari in the Thar Desert.

 

 

 

 

 

Once you dive into this cloud, you actually don’t see it, as if it was dissolved by magic. Many people live their entire lives in this blanket of harmful air, and it is a wonder that they do not all develop lung problems (although the number is steadily rising).

A significant part of this pollution stems from a vast number of scooters and motorcycles, many of which are equipped with two-stroke engines, which are far more polluting than the four-stroke engines of cars, because the fuel-air mixture in them gets contaminated with the lubricating oils of the engine. The combustion chamber draws in this contaminated mixture, as exhaust gases are expelled through the exhaust port, and some of the fuel and oil gets mixed with the exhaust.

Other culprits are trucks, which often drive on diesel of very low quality, sending out puffs of black smoke.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rhinos, elephants, and larger cats may be the next large animals to be extirpated because of people’s thoughtlessness and greed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the mid 1940s, a single hunter shot just under 1,000 rhinos in an area of 200 square kilometres in eastern Kenya, to make way for African settlement. By 1980, an area 100 times as large, the adjoining Tsavo National Park, held only about 150 surviving rhinos. An animal that has inhabited the Earth for some 60 million years is now reduced to a few thousands that cling onto survival in little pockets of bush and jungle set aside for their protection. And even there they are being relentlessly hunted, trapped and killed.”

 

 

 

 

 

Rhino parts have been used as ingredients in traditional Asian medicine for at least 2000 years. Virtually every part of the animal is used: the horn for reducing fever and spasms; the skin for skin diseases; the penis as an aphrodisiac; the bones to treat bone disorders; the blood “as a tonic for women who are suffering from menstrual problems.”

In China, powdered horn is regarded as an aphrodisiac. However, chemical analyses have not revealed any active ingredients to suggest that the remedy could be effective in this respect.

In fact, western medical experts tend to discount all claims of any curative power in rhino horn. It is well known that aspirin contains similar properties and produces many of the same results as rhino prescriptions in patients.

Asian rhino horns are more highly prized than African rhino horns, as consumers believe that their smaller size means that they are more concentrated, and therefore more potent.

Formerly, rhino horn was also used for adorning dagger sheaths in Yemen – a practice which may still take place.

All five species of rhino are critically endangered due to widespread poaching and habitat loss.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

According to TRAFFIC, which is monitoring international wildlife trade, a minimum of 1,590 tigers were seized by officials between January 2000 and April 2014, feeding the illegal wildlife trade. (Source: WWF – Worldwide Fund for Nature, 2016)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bear gall bladders are much utilized in Chinese traditional medicine for treatment of skin problems and severe cases of red and swollen eyes, and also for clearing the eyesight, removing toxins and parasites from the body, alleviating spasms, increasing release of bile, improving absorption of vitamin D and calcium, and reducing fever, swellings, and pain.

Due to illegal hunting, bears have disappeared, or become very rare, in many areas, including Europe, Southeast Asia, Korea, China, and Taiwan. Many bears are kept in captivity to supply the various markets. In South Korea, for instance, only around ten Asian black bears, or moon bears (Ursus thibetanus), live in the wild, whereas c. 1600 are kept in captivity, often under horrible conditions. These captive bears are often killed in the most cruel and horrendous ways, and that this practice is illegal does not seem to deter consumers.

Previously, the Asian black bear was a totem animal to various indigenous tribes in Taiwan, and it was a sign of courage to kill one. Today, the bear is extremely rare in the island. It is strictly protected, but is only very slowly recovering, presumably due to being vulnerable to diseases, caused by inbreeding.

As numbers dwindled in other areas, the attention of poachers, in the 1990s, shifted to western North America, which houses a large number of brown bears (Ursus arctos) and American black bears (U. americanus). Since then, numerous bears have been illegally collected here, intended for Asian societies in American cities, to be served as bear paw soup, or for production of traditional medicine.

Today, five of the world’s eight bear species are endangered.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(…)

The United States proceeded with the destruction of the sea otters, and the Alaska Company took 47,482 skins between 1881 and 1890. In 1900, however, only 127 skins were taken, and ten years later the season’s catch of a fleet of sixteen schooners was less than two per ship. As a result, the fur traders offered no resistance when, in the following year, an international treaty was set up to protect all otters north of the Thirtieth Parallel – Baja California and southern Japan – a measure which made a sanctuary of their entire range. The sale of sea-otter fur was forbidden in the United States and Alaska, and the last legal pelt, marketed in London that year, brought nearly two thousand dollars.

Meanwhile, the sea otters of the United States had disappeared entirely, and it was not thought that the species would survive long anywhere. But in 1933, a few individuals were located off the California coast.”

 

 

Since its protection, the sea otter has made a dramatic comeback, and the total population may be as high as c. 110,000 individuals, with the most stable population, counting c. 27,000, living in Russia, notably on the Kuril Islands.

 

 

 

 

 

Crocodiles have been hunted relentlessly due to their reputation as man-eaters, and also to provide skins for the leather industry, where they are used in the production of luxury items such as handbags, shoes, belts, wallets, and upholstery.

The current international trade involves over 1.5 million skins per year, exported legally from about 30 countries. The animals are kept under cruel conditions in small cages or concrete ponds, with extremely little space for each animal. A crocodile raised in a farm will be killed when it is just 2-3 years old, whereas the lifespan of these animals in the wild is up to 30 years.

Out of 18 species worldwide, 6 are listed as critically endangered by the IUCN.

Any industry which requires the captivity and slaughter of animals can never be ethical.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

During the First Gulf War (1990-1991), the local people, the Madan, sided with the American forces, because, being Shi’ites, they – justly – felt persecuted by the Sunni government in Baghdad. As a retaliation, Saddam Hussein let the marshes drain after the war, putting an end to a way of life that had existed for thousands of years. Today, a part of the marshland has been restored, and birds have returned, but only a fraction of former numbers, and hunting is still excessive.

Unfortunately, the example above is not unique. Everywhere on the planet, birds are declining alarmingly due to overhunting, draining of wetlands, clearing of forest to create more farmland, conversion of shallow coastal waters to prawn farms, rice fields, and salt pans, etc.

The division of Muslims into Sunnis and Shi’ites is described on the page Religion: Islam.

 

 

 

 

 

In many poor countries, the garbage is taken just outside the city limit and dumped in empty lots, in a river, or down the nearest slope.

However, disposal of garbage outside garbage dumps is not a phenomenon restricted to poor countries. In later years, in the so-called ‘developed’ countries, a growing indifference to garbage everywhere seems to have become prevalent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today, this area bears the marks of decay and indifference, in equal measures. Rubble, wires, iron pipes, oil drums, scrapped trucks, workmen’s huts, and a lot of other rubbish is ubiquitous, and nobody shows any incentive to clean up the mess. During the Soviet Era, you just did what you were told, which does not exactly encourage personal initiative. Today, when you are not told to do anything, it seems that nobody wants to take the trouble to clear the mess, and thus beautify the area.

Our adventures in Chukotka are related on the page Travel episodes – Siberia 2011: Caterpillar trip in Chukotka.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another grim situation is prevalent in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, where the ruling upper class shows an appalling lack of initiative, when it comes to encroachment of nature. Renovation in this city is largely non-existing, and lots of garbage is left in the streets, or dumped into the rivers, where the monsoon rain (when it finally arrives) washes the garbage down to the Indians on the Gangetic Plain. Meanwhile, it is piling up in the river beds.

It is often NGOs or local groups who must step in, when it comes to molestation of nature, as local politicians and civil servants are too busy filling their own pockets to care about these things. The money, which they obtain through corruption and bribing, is spent to acquire expensive mansions and luxury cars like Porsche, Lexus, or Mercedes, so that they can drive around in the city among the mob and feel important – the very mob, many of which voted for them, and whom they were elected to serve.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paradoxically, these canals are good places to observe birds, some coming to drink, others to feed among the dirt. They seem to completely ignore the stink. Among birds that I have observed in these canals, are little egret (Egretta garzetta), black-crowned night-heron (Nycticorax nycticorax), Javan myna (Acridotheres javanicus), common sandpiper (Actitis hypoleucos), common kingfisher (Alcedo atthis), black bulbul (Hypsipetes leucocephalus), and grey wagtail (Motacilla cinerea). – Pictures, depicting these species, are shown on the page Animals – Birds: Birds in Taiwan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One thing is that the clothes are peculiar. If you dare to comment on them, you are told that this is fashion, and you don’t know anything about that. All right, that may be so, but why do the women, who display these rags, have to be so thin?

They are often role models for young and insecure girls, for whom the worst nightmare is to be different from their friends. To become like their role models, many of them starve themselves, and a small percentage end up suffering from anorexia – a life-threatening ailment.

Please, in the name of salubrity, can we have fashion models that look like ordinary, healthy women instead of rattling skeletons?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As it turned out, this movement was a disaster. Estimates vary, but, between 1958 and 1962, somewhere between 30 and 45 million people died, mainly of starvation due to failing crops.

In 1966, Mao instigated another movement, the so-called Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, claiming that bourgeois elements had infiltrated the society, and also the government, with the aim of restoring capitalism. By destroying the Four Olds, i.e. old customs, culture, habits, and ideas, this movement would preserve Chinese communism and re-enforce the thoughts of Mao in the Party.

To eliminate his rivals within the Party, Mao insisted that revisionists be removed through violent class struggle. Countless so-called Red Guard groups were formed throughout the country, and millions of people suffered a wide range of abuses, including public humiliation, arbitrary imprisonment, torture, hard labour, seizure of property, and often execution.

Minorities around the country suffered enormous casualties, especially among religious practitioners. In Inner Mongolia, some 790,000 people were persecuted, 22,900 were beaten to death, and 120,000 were maimed. In Sinkiang, Muslim imams were paraded around with paint splashed on their bodies. In Tibet, thousands of Buddhist monks were killed, and hundreds of children of Tibetan nobles were abducted from their home, being brainwashed to regard their parents as contra-revolutionary traitors.

The destruction of cultural treasures around the country was appalling. In Tibet, for example, all but seven of the initial 6,000 Buddhist monasteries were more or less destroyed, often by local ethnic Tibetan Red Guards. In Sinkiang, numerous mosques were defaced, and in ethnic Korean areas of north-eastern China, language schools were destroyed.

A list of sources may be found on the following website: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Worst of all, this trade encourages the public to view animals as impulse purchases no different from fashion products that are acquired on a whim and discarded when the novelty wears off – rather than thinking, feeling beings who deserve love and respect.

Every year, people succumb to the temptation to purchase ‘exotic’ animals like hedgehogs, macaws, lizards, snakes, tortoises, frogs, or monkeys, and even tigers and bears, from stores, auctions, or the internet, to keep them as ‘pets’. But often life in captivity rapidly leads to pain and death for these animals, who can easily suffer from malnutrition, an unnatural and uncomfortable environment, loneliness, and the overwhelming stress of confinement.

The exotic animal trade is also deadly for animals we don’t see. For every animal who makes it to the store or the auction, countless others die along the way.

The above text is a slightly altered version of a text, borrowed from the website peta.org/issues/animal-companion-issues/pet-trade.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please don’t misunderstand me. I am absolutely among those who find mountains fantastic, and I am willing to undergo hardships to get close to them. But I am also among those who can enjoy a mountain at a distance, without having to ‘conquer’ it, as the climbers say, quite foolishly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The pictures below were taken in 2019 on the Greek island of Crete. In a rather large area in the western part of the island, each and every sign had been shot at. Can it be concluded that Cretan hunters are more primitive than the rest of the tribe?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cell phones are practical, if you want to give a short message, or if you are in trouble. But all the unnecessary usage described above is pure mania. Many people’s major contact with others is through so-called ‘chatting’, i.e. you send an sms to others, mostly meaningless nonsense about what you have done, what you are doing, or what you intend to do.

Reminds me of the story of a man who thought that he didn’t have much contact with his teenage son, so he suggested him that they have a chat. “Allright,” said the son, whipping out his cell phone to start chatting.

Below is a collection of pictures, depicting cell phone users of all ages around the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Herluf Winge put these arguments into practice, when he, in 1919, established a foundation under the auspices of the University of Copenhagen, stating that the money was to be used to acquire ”(…) one or several sanctuaries to protect plants and animals, including the so-called harmful animals.”

Nine years later, the small island Vorsø with surrounding islets, situated in Horsens Fjord, were bought. The sanctuary was a reality. This interesting reserve is presented in depth on the page Nature Reserve Vorsø.

Areas not influenced by Man were indeed rare in Denmark in those days. Only some islets, a few rocky areas on the island of Bornholm, and some areas of moor and marsh in northern Jutland, were left largely untouched by Man. Natural forest was restricted to tiny enclaves here and there. Countless rivers were channeled, lakes and marshes were drained, as late as the 1960s.

One of the most ruthlessly persecuted species was the great cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo), which, during the 1800s, was killed all over Europe, partly because it was competing with fishermen, partly because its guano was destroying the trees, in which it was breeding.

In a letter, dated May 5, 1904, Herluf Winge wrote to school teacher Teodor Bang: ”You may have noticed that Dansk Fiskeriforening (Danish Fishermen’s Association) will pay one Krone [quite a lot of money in those days] for every killed cormorant. I am sure this abomination is the work of Professor Feddersen. It is of some comfort that in reality it has no effect, because there are no cormorants here anymore, with the exception of a few winter visitors. How well the fishermen know their foe is obvious from this fact: during the first rewarding round, a few fishermen, by mistake, sent some severed ‘cormorant’ feet to the Zoological Museum instead of the Fishermen’s Association; they were loon feet.”

The pictures below are from Vorsø, where the great cormorant re-established itself during the 1940s, after being eradicated from this island in the 1800s, and, incidentally, from almost the entire country.

 

 

 

 

 

The actual motive of this quest was simple greed. In his book Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West, American author Stephen Ambrose (1936-2002) writes: “The Virginians’ lust for land and their resulting rage for speculation can only be marveled at. Before the revolution, George Washington owned tens of thousands of acres in the Tidewater and Piedmont and over sixty-three thousand acres of trans-Appalachia. He wanted more. Jefferson inherited more than five thousand acres in the Piedmont from his father. He wanted more. From his wife he got another eleven thousand acres. And though he was a substantial landowner, he was not a great one by Virginian standards.”

When the immigrants poured into the West, a large-scale theft of land, on which native peoples had been living for thousands of years, began. For many of the tribes, the concept of land-owning was incomprehensible. They belonged to the land – not the other way around. Thus, it was often a simple matter to trick the tribal leaders to sign treaties, which would cede their territories to the whites. The natives merely thought that they would continue to live on their land, together with the white people. Little did they know.

Later, the famous Hunkpapa Lakota shaman Tatanka Iyothake (‘Sitting Bull’) (1831-1890) made this comment: “The white men have a mind to till the soil, and the love of possession is a disease with them. These people have made many rules that the rich may break, but the poor may not. (…) They claim this mother of ours, the earth, for their own and fence their neighbours away; they deface her with their buildings and their refuse.”

As it turned out, acquiring land in the ‘legal’ way through treaties was not enough for the immigrants, and each and every treaty was broken by them, often with the assistance of federal army troops.

Many appalling relocations of native peoples were carried out. The most famous one was the forced removal of c. 16,000 Cherokee, in 1838, from their home lands in south-eastern U.S. to present-day Oklahoma. During this removal, an estimated 4,000 Cherokee died. The various migration routes were called ‘The Trail of Tears’, or, in Cherokee, Nunna daul Isunyi (‘the trail where we wept’).

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Modoc were a hunter-gatherer people who originally lived in present-day north-eastern California and southern Oregon. Between 1846 and 1873, thousands of European settlers entered the Modoc territory, and in 1864 they were forced to accept a treaty, which ceded most of their land to the whites, leaving only the so-called Klamath Reservation for both the Modoc and the Klamath tribes.

However, the reservation did not provide enough food for both tribes, and in 1870, Modoc Chief Kintpuash (born c. 1837), whom the whites called ‘Captain Jack’, made some of his people leave the reservation and return to their traditional homelands, where they built a village near the Lost River. These Modoc had not been adequately represented in the treaty negotiations, and they wished to end the harassment by the Klamath on the reservation.

When they were driven away from their new village, Kintpuash and his band took refuge in an area of ancient lava beds, as they did not want to return to the reservation. For five months in 1872-1873, during what was later called the Modoc War, 53 warriors and their families withstood American forces, amounting to ten times the Modoc.

In April 1873, at a peace commission meeting, Kintpuash and his men killed General Edward Canby and Reverend Eleazer Smith and wounded two other commissioners. The Modoc mistakenly thought that the Americans would leave if their leaders were killed. But when they felt inclined to take such drastic measures as to kill American soldiers, they had just committed about the worst crime possible in this intensely nationalistic country. Army reinforcements were brought in, and the Modoc were eventually forced to surrender. Kintpuash and some of his men were convicted of war crimes for the murders and executed by hanging at Fort Klamath. If they had known, they would probably have preferred to die on the battlefield.

During my visit to Lava Beds National Monument, the faint wind seemed to whisper to me, “Here in this barren landscape, Kintpuash and his people resisted a much larger American force during five long months. Here they underwent immense sufferings, only because they resisted to people stealing their land.”

My sad thoughts were underlined by the melancholy evening cooing of a mourning dove (Zenaida macroura).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I agree whole-heartedly. In reality, countries and borders merely exist in people’s heads, and excessive nationalism has been the cause of countless wars and civil wars around the world, often provoked by power-hungry politicians, who have stirred up the mobs to regard other peoples and races as enemies of the established society. During these wars, many politicians have taken the opportunity to get rid of persons with a different point of view, often intellectuals or students, or leaders of opposing political parties.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not all birdwatchers share this attitude. A steadily increasing number of ornithologists are so-called twitchers, a term used for birdwatchers, who are willing to travel long distances to see a rare bird, which is then ticked off on their list of lifers, i.e. a bird they have never seen before. The term twitcher originated in the 1950s, when it was used for the nervous behaviour of Howard Medhurst, a British birdwatcher, who was literally twitching, when he saw a rare bird.

These twitchers spend most of their leisure time trying to find rare birds – preferably species, which they haven’t seen before. These observations are posted on the internet, or spread by various systems on mobile phones, so that other twitchers can rush to the area to try to see the bird in question.

Not all birds are easy to find. Many birds, including rails and crakes, and also many passerines, have a tendency to hide among dense vegetation. Such birds are called skulkers. It often requires a very long time to get to see these birds, so in order not to waste too much of their valuable time, twitchers lure them out from the vegetation by playing their song or call on their mobile phones. This is called play-back or play-in. The bird in question approaches to chase away its ‘opponent’, and the twitchers are jubilant that they succeeded in observing the bird. The fact that they stress the bird is of no concern to them.

As soon as a twitcher has ticked off a new species on his list, it loses a large part of its attraction, no matter how beautiful or interesting it may be. Instead, the twitcher concentrates his energy on finding other species, which he hasn’t seen before.

Once I heard a twitcher say: ”Now I have seen all the species depicted in The Birds of Britain and Europe*, so now I can throw away the book!” – When you have reached this point, your birdwatching has become a simple collecting mania. In some individuals, this mania develops into competitions, the aim of which is to decide who is able to observe most bird species on his property, in his county or country, on a continent, or in the entire world.

In 1980, British William Oddie – who is a bit of a twitcher himself – wrote a very humorous book, entitled Bill Oddie’s Little Black Bird Book. Read it, and have a hearty laughter!