Green Man Blog

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How would you like to find one of these lizards nosing around your tent in the morning?

Komodo dragons can grow to a length of ten feet, although they average around 8 feet. They are the world’s heaviest lizards at 200 lbs for the average male.

And they’re quick: they can climb trees as well as swim, and they regularly hunt down pigs and deer.




Fewer than 3,000 to 5,000 now exist in the wild, in a habitat restricted to the Lesser Sunda Islands of Rinca, Komodo, Flores, and the smaller islands of Gili, Montang, and Padar.

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From artisanal mining.

This type of mining uses crude methods to extract precious metals such as gold.

Over 25% of the gold mined is from artisanal mines. Most artisanal mining is done in developing nations.

The miners use mercury to draw out the gold from silt. The mercury combines with the gold, then it is heated and evaporated, leaving the gold behind.

But the evaporated mercury settles back into the environment where is it absorbed by living organisms that make up the food chain.

And at the top of the food chain? All of us, of course.

It was 41 years ago today that man first landed on the moon.

Command module pilot Michael Collin had these words to say: "I really believe that if the political leaders of the world could see their planet from a distance of 100,000 miles their outlook could be fundamentally changed. That all-important border would be invisible, that noisy argument silenced. The tiny globe would continue to turn, serenely ignoring its subdivisions, presenting a unified facade that would cry out for unified understanding, for homogeneous treatment. The Earth must become as it appears: blue and white, not capitalist or communist; blue and white, not rich or poor; blue and white, not envious or envied."

One of the key words Collins uses to describe Earth is "fragile" and he said that 40 years later it is still fragile "and growing more so."

"When we flew to the moon, our population was 3 billion; today it has more than doubled and is headed for 8 billion, the experts say. I do not think this growth is sustainable or healthy. The loss of habitat, the trashing of oceans, the accumulation of waste products - this is no way to treat a planet."

He's right, don’t you think?

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