After being frozen for thousands of years in a Siberian riverbed, this pristine mammoth tusk is a financial boon to the hunter who found it. Photo credit Evgenia Arbugaeva/National Geographic Magazine
I was listening to All Things Considered two weeks ago, when the topic went to the melting of the world’s icecaps. This has resulted in the mad rush for newly uncovered sites for oil and natural gas reserves. And I thought with the shortage of oil globally, we would finally come to our senses collectively and focus our energies on alternative sources.
The other miraculous wonder is that with miles and miles of Siberian ice tundras melting, long tusks of the great woolly mammoths that walked our earth thousands of years ago, are now exposed for poachers to feast on.
This really bothers me. I deplore the trade especially because it has put the lives of many elephants in peril. I don’t see the artistic nor the investment value of owning one either. Maybe I’m of a different culture or generation. Or I’m not artistic enough. That’s beside the point. It’s just so wrong! How can someone in good conscience sacrifice the lives of elephants for a trinket? or a sculpture? Now these woolly mammoths’ tusks will be used for these too?
Over here in our neck of the woods, we see the sad effects of climate change in more places than we care to. We recently walked on Pulgas Ridge off Edgewood Road in Redwood City. We saw quite a few large trees had been cut down. We can’t help but wonder what went wrong for them, after decades of thriving on this preserve.
Tree Stump on Pulgas Ridge, San Carlos, CA, photo credit (c) Likeitiz
If only the trees could talk and tell us about their plight!
Beau on the Tree Stump, Pulgas Ridge, photo credit (c) Likeitiz
Well, at least Beau got to enjoy a break from walking the trails!
Related articles
- There are millions of mammoth tusks in that Arctic ice that is melting. (althouse.blogspot.com)
- 10 Animals Hunted (or Nearly Hunted) To Extinction (huntercourse.com)
- Reverse extinction: Should we redo the dodo? (phys.org)
- ‘De-Extinction’ Of Woolly Mammoth and Other Ancient Animals Could Become Reality, Scientists Say (jtm71.wordpress.com)
- As Arctic Ice Melts, It’s A Free-For-All For Oil … And Tusks (wnyc.org)
- 10 Facts about the Woolly Mammoth dinosaurs.about.com)
- Pulgas Ridge (openspace.org)
Yum, mammoth steak! I kid, of course, though I do wonder… And it is amazing how stupid people can be sometimes, isn’t it? I mean, the remains of these mammoths present wonderful opportunities for study and appreciation. Parks should be created where the remains are too so people can see the effects of the Climate Change, both as it happened after the last Ice Age and today. Luckily, I do have some hopeful input. Solar energy is dropping in cost like never before, and every year the use thereof is increasing by a margin of 80% or more. Still a long way to go, but the one reason it wasn’t being adopted wholesale in the past – cost of manufacture and installation – is now gone. In addition, there are some amazing new types of panels being created that offer increased efficiency that can be used just about anywhere. Even clothing… Bring on clean energy!
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Clothing? Amazing.
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It’s all on my site, under the heading of “Powered by the Sun”. So… hintedy, hint, hint!
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I don’t understand why some still argue against the climate change. Instead we should already be changing this thing we call civilization. It’s really sad to think about all we human beings are able to destroy on this planet.
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Sadly, a lot of opposition is motivated by money, fear and loathing of change and insistence on the status quo.
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Never too late.
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Wow. That mammoth tusk is amazing. I can’t imagine how big they were.
Climate change depresses me. I love nature and it’s hard to see our commercialism/captialism sucking all of our natural resources dry and killing off species. Grrrr….
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i see it here too. there are camelias in my backyard that always bloomed in january in february as the are meant to. every year they are blooming later-in fact they are just blooming now. it seems we have a big hand in altering the inner time clock of nature.
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when all trees are killed we at least have many dog seats!
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Somehow, it gives me hollow comfort.
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It is scary. Our planet is screaming from all the abuses man had done for years. If we don’t do something about it, we now have a glimpse of what’s the next story will be years from now. Let’s hope and pray people will open their eyes to the truth and start caring for nature.
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Reblogged this on James' World 2.
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If you google the glacier melt its scary so I no longer do.
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Too late! I already did. It’s really scary.
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