What is the most intelligent species on the planet?

Posted on by Opher

The vanity of humans is that we are so intelligent that it puts us apart from all other life.

I reckon that is simply wrong.

We probably haven’t been the most intelligent species on the planet in the past and we probably aren’t now.

If there is a correlation between brain size then we are not the most intelligent species of Homo. Homo neanderthal had bigger brain capacity than us.

Homo neanderthal brain size was larger than the average modern human brain. It averaged 1500 cubic centimetres and an average 3.3 lbs while Homo sapiens has a  brain volume of just 1273.6 cm3 for men,

Does that mean they were more intelligent? We’ll never know. We do know that they were the first to produce artwork and created abstract work that seemed to have some shamanic meaning.

In terms of other animals on the planet our brains are a lot smaller than a number of other species. A human brain weighs on average 3.3 lbs. The largest brains are those of sperm whales, weighing about 8 kg (18 lb) – nearly 6 times larger than us!! And then killer whales, weighing about 12–15 lb (5.4–6.8 kg) – 4 to 5 times as big!! An elephant‘s brain weighs just over 5 kg (11 lb) and a bottlenose dolphin‘s 1.5 to 1.7 kg (3.3 to 3.7 lb). We are by no means the animals with the biggest brains.

Perhaps they are all more intelligent than us? We judge them by the fact that they do not produce any technology, read, write or speak. But maybe all that is just our anthropomorphic thinking. Who know what intricate thoughts they have?

Many other creature from Apes to crows display intelligence.

Perhaps we should not think of ourselves as being so special?

Borneo – the ongoing massacre of Orang-utans.

Posted on by Opher

Orang-utans are kind gentle creatures. They are harmless. The last place they have now is Borneo. Yet since 1990 100,000 of these poor gentle creatures have been mindlessly killed – over 50% of them are gone.

Last week a poor adult orang-utan was found dying with 150 airgun wounds. He’d been repeated shot and left to die a horrible death.

Now their habitat is being destroyed for palm oil and they are driven out and left to starve. Those that are left are being hunted for food. When they venture into the farming areas they are killed.

These apes are one of our closest relatives. It is illegal to kill them but the laws are not enforced.

To preserve these beautiful creatures we need to do three things:

a. Maintain the dwindling forests.

b. Educate the population not to hunt and kill them and that they are gentle creatures who do nobody any harm.

c. Enforce the laws and protect the last of these noble creatures.

Help Save the Colombian Amazon from Destruction!!

Posted on by Opher

Please sign the petition and help save this beautiful rainforest from destruction. They will destroy countless animals if this goes unchecked.

https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/colombiaamazon_loc/?cCAwEjb

Global Citizen – Stand Up For The Artic!!

Posted on by Opher

U.S. monuments, landmarks, public lands, and waters are under severe threat. Just this past October, the U.S. Department of the Interior, the agency in charge of protecting public lands, announced it plans to open up 10.3 million acres in the Arctic , which will likely lead to an increase in drilling and fossil fuel development in that fragile area.

Please sign the petition!!

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/action/nrdc-arctic-region-petition/?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=UK_12_Feb_2018_Environment_Arctic_USDrilling_NRDC_Petition_Alive

Irresponsible Logging in Tasmania

Posted on by Opher

As we drove through what seemed to be lush tropical rainforest everything seemed fine. Dylan and Julia stopped to show us the lie. The logging companies had left a stand of trees next to the road. Beyond that we walked out into a scene of devastation. There were hills denuded of trees. The logging companies had stripped them bare. The wildlife was gone – either killed or banished.

The reason? These old gum trees were felled to sell to China who pulped them for paper!!

Do we really need to destroy wildlife for paper?

Wineglass Bay – Tasmania – the site of Slaughter!

Posted on by Opher

We climbed up into the hills to see the beautiful Wineglass bay with its sparkling blue waters. I was greatly impressed. I assumed that the name was merely based on the fact that it resembled the shape of a wineglass. Unfortunately it wasn’t.

Wineglass bay was the scene of many mass slaughters and the scene of carnage.

In the past thousands of porpoises were herded into the shallow waters of the bay and trapped. There they were cruelly slaughtered with wicked gaffs and sharp knives. They were sawn open while alive and their blood spilt into those pure waters. From above the blooded waters filled the bay with the scarlet blood of thousands of poor creatures. It resembled a glass half-full of claret.

The beautiful, serene Wineglass Bay was, in the past, a scene of murder most horrible.

The Tiger Snake under the outbuilding – called Fang!

Posted on by Opher

I was heading around the straw-bale house looking for wildlife to photograph. I saw what I thought was a hosepipe all coiled up at the end of an outbuilding and thought nothing of it. As I approached and got a few feet away it suddenly uncoiled and slithered into a hole under the outbuilding.

I was told it was a Tiger Snake – and a big one. It lived under that building. They are one of the most poisonous and deadly and are known to be aggressive. I called him Fang.

Over the next few days I tried sneaking up on him when he was sunbathing and managed to get a few shots of him. He did not like me getting too close but didn’t seem at all aggressive. But he was big!

What a beautiful specimen!

Consciousness – The next frontier!

Posted on by Opher

Science is still in its infancy. Our knowledge and understanding expands by the second. Give it a couple of thousand years and there is no telling what it will have uncovered. It will be a different world.

Consciousness is something that we have only recently had the tools to enable us to explore. It is a wondrous result of evolution.

Are all creatures conscious? Do plants possess consciousness? Who would dare say?

Will we develop machines that are fully conscious in the near future? Will they be independent and more intelligent than us?

How many creatures on this planet have had consciousness on a par with our own? Surely the other species of humans had? But they are, unfortunately, gone. Surely our nearest ape cousins have consciousness comparable to our own? Surely whales, with their bigger brains than us have comparable consciousness to that of our own? – Different certainly, but on a par – or superior?

Consciousness is a wondrous thing to be cherished. However you believe it came about surely it is to be nourished, nurtured and celebrated?

Why then are we not cherishing it? Why are we driving our cousin, the apes, to extinction? Hunting and killing Orangutans, Chimps and Gorillas? Harpooning whales for a little blubber and a snack?

Why can’t we cherish something that is so wondrous and seek to preserve it?

‘You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone

They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.’

 

Please Help Support Greenpeace and make a stand for the Antartic!

Posted on by Opher

There are few places on the planet that we haven’t messed up. We’ve destroyed rainforests all over the world, polluted rivers and seas and sent thousands of species to extinction. The Antarctic is one of the few places we haven’t yet messed up. It is a pristine wilderness full of wondrous creatures.

It needs protecting. Please help make a stand.

38 Degrees – Remove Plastics From Tea Bags

Posted on by Opher

38 Degrees are running a campaign to get plastic removed from tea bags. I think it needs supporting!

I don’t want plastic in my tea

Neither does the sea

Plastic is messing up our oceans, killing wildlife and ending up in our food. Plastic is filling up landfills. It is so unnecessary. We can easily create biodegradable alternatives.

Please sign the petition.

To: Paul Polman, CEO of PG Tips & Unilever

Remove plastics from tea bags

MA

Contact Campaign Creator

Campaign created by
Mike Armitage
Remove plastics from tea bags

Remove all plastic from tea bags to ensure they are fully bio-degradable/compostable.

Why is this important?

Unilever owns PG Tips, the UK’s most popular cup of tea. Let’s call on them to remove ALL plastics from tea bags – it is usually polypropylene. Teabags won’t completely biodegrade if they have plastic in them. People in Britain drink 165m cups of tea EVERY day – with 96% of those from tea bags. That adds up to billions of pieces of plastic. As a market leader and the recent purchaser of Pukkha teas which doesn’t use plastic in its tea bags, Unilever could help make a positive difference to the environment by removing plastic now.

Polypropylene is a plastic and 20% is not a small or insignificant amount when multiplied up by the millions and millions of tea bags used daily around the world. All of these plastics remains un-degraded in the environment.

There have been many campaigns to keep plastics and microplastics out of our seas, highlighting the harm they do to marine life. But the same is true of plastics on land as they can cause harm to birds and small mammals. We need to keep ALL plastics OUT of our environment.

I believe that it is possible to use another material that is biodegradable – plant or fabric based. In fact, I understand that there is already one brand of conventional teabag which is polypropylene-free made by Jacksons of Piccadilly, so it is technically and practically possible.

Let’s make our environment plastic free and fully compostable with a change to the materials used in our tea bags.

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