Why I Blog

One of the comments left on a previous posting, raises a serious point. And it is one of the problems with and for anyone who keeps a web log, that of accuracy. I really do try and ensure that everything I post it accurate, I am human (well a mouse! Thinks; does that make me Chimera?) and I can make mistakes, but on the whole I do work very hard at getting the facts right.

I have in fact got over a hundred postings that I have written where because I can not verify the facts, I just have not posted them. Although some may see the light of pixel if I latter get details the show the accuracy. Also while I mainly talk about the environment, one of the aspects of the way I try to post is to show just how important the Natural History, the Ecology and the Environment is to all aspects of our lives.

I could just as easily post purely on Human Rights, another aspect of the worlds injustice that I am passionate about, but aspects of the Environment would creep into that as there is a strong link between Human Rights, poverty and the Environment. Just as Politics, the Economy and Food are all linked to the Environment too.

But I choose to write mainly on the environment as if I were to write mainly on human rights, I would end up making myself very depressed. At least with the environment even when I am posting about bleak topics or issues I can step outside and I can see what I am striving to save. When I meet others that also care about the environment and are prepared to make the effort to try to make the planet better, equally I am uplifted.

Thus it and will remain the environment that is at the lynch pin of my postings here. Yet even stating that raises another aspect that I personally find amusing more than anything else, when someone disagrees with the mouse they normally dismiss my comments as being ill-informed or that I just don't know what I am talking about. It happened when I was talking about the economy. A comment was made that I had jumped on the band wagon of condemning hedge funds and short selling. Well not just here, I have been in disagreement with these practices for years. The person that made the comment followed up when I said that we should agree to disagree with a statement that made me smile. He was saying that as this was an environmental blog I should stick with the subject and not talk about what I did not know about. That made me smile as I studied Business and Accounting at University and even there I challenged many of the assumptions that Economics are based upon. Wood Mouse was not a popular student, but I did get people to think for themselves. Assuming that is the way it is or that is is the way things have to be just leads to us all repeating the mistakes of the past.

Then there is the most recent comment that inspired this posting. I was talking about the fact that by raising quotas for fishing Blue Fin Tuna, the EU (European Union) were likely to cause the extinction of this species. I have to say to be totally fair and accurate that America and Canada have better conservation measures in place than does Europe. Anyway in a pessimistic response the person more or less said that there was nothing that could be done. I pointed out that there are actions that can be taken. Further, I quoted examples where the purchasing power of the consumer has effected change. He however quite rightly pointed out that the poorest peoples have little money to effect change. But I am not talking about the poor and the very poor in these situations, I am talking about the richer west and northern countries. I was asked directly if I knew what the average wage is in Africa. While I don't know the exact figures, I do know that millions are having to live on a Dollar a day or less. While most of these people will have never seen a Dollar Bill, this is a measure of the extreme poverty used by the United Nations and NGOs (Non Governmental Organisations). Thus I say quite clearly, I do try hard to stay informed.

Often I am not on top of the news in my postings here, simply because of the fact that I do check the facts. As the mainstream media often rush to judgement, I prefer to ensure that I am accurate rather than first. That's something that most Newspapers need to learn. The day after the 9/11 attacks, here in Britain on Sky News (The Rupert Murdock Satellite channel) falsely claimed that there had been eight aircraft high jacked and that five were shot down by the US Air force. Now the attacks were shocking enough but even the thought that the American Military had been forced to kill US civilians just added to the sickening news that was emerging. I still meet people that tell me that this was true and is now part of all the conspiracy nonsense that is associated with that terrible day.

That brings me to an important aspect of why I blog. While there is some good Media here in Britain, The Guardian and the BBC to name a couple, the vast majority here and around the world are Right wing in nature. Often just pampering to the political agenda of a few powerful men. When it comes to “Green” issues this media is just down right hostile to issues like Climate Change and will and have done all they can to spout the lie that it is not happening. These rags have done more to slow down reasoned rational attempts to stop and reverse the effects of climate change.

At least here in cyberspace, another prospective can be placed in the public domain. If I can get at least one person to look at a topic in another way then it may well be worth the effort. I just think that its a shame that the lies and political propaganda of News International reaches so many. Here in Britain, News International is strongly anti Europe. In the past there were a series of reports that several foods were going to be banned by the EU This included Prawn cocktail potato crisps (I think Americans call them potato chips), and that bananas were going to have to be straight. All were just made up. That is one of the benefits of the Internet, as people can now check for themselves and discover for themselves that these are untrue.

Just as on the Environment the majority of the mainstream media has an agenda in relation to Europe. For example I understand that News International was and remains against the introduction of the Euro in Britain as the business that is News International makes significant monies from the fluctuations in currency values. Even though some of their major advertisers were and are in favour of Britain adopting the Euro. Also News International has been anti environment to support the car companies and the oil companies who are major advertisers.

It is one of the reasons why so much of the media is now full of the dross of celebrity culture rather than real news. At the moment there is a genocide going on in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the former Zaire. Yet this gets scant reporting, in fact while this is going on even supposedly serious news programmes on the BBC were full of the nonsense that a former journalist had resigned from a dancing competition. This followed hot on the heals of a couple of childish presenters that were rude and offensive on the radio. Yet real news was ignored. This includes the news that a comedian in Burma has been sent to prison for forty five years for making fun of the generals that run that benighted country. If only the papers would kick up a stink over issues like that, what a better world we could have.

This is another reason for posting on this web log, to raise issues that the mainstream media just seem to ignore. As I have said previously I could write this blog about Human Rights all the time, but as well as making me depressed, I just do not have the time either. If I didn't have to go out and earn money for luxury items like food, then perhaps I could do more on that aspect of the world.

The reason that I write with this electronic quill about the environment is that it is central to everything. In Indonesia when the forest dwelling people loose their part of the rainforest also loose their means of sustenance. So while selling the timber will generate a short term income for the nation, the long term cost to Indonesia is that these people add to the unemployment there. That's without even thinking of the environmental factors that this legal logging has. I could quote other examples but I would rather leave those for latter postings.

One of the major problems is simply that far to many people have been influenced by the right wing press into assuming that their agenda is the only way of doing things. Yet by protecting the planet and supporting people around the world we can feed the hungry and safeguard the diversity of species that are essential for our existence too.