Animals - Their importance to humans.

When you look outside your window in the morning with a cup of something hot in the morning, what do you see and hear if you live in the suburbs?
Most of the time it is children and dogs that you hear and see. Sometimes you would even hear the birds in the trees during the warmer months. But what does this have to do with why animals are important you might ask?

Well it all comes down to history. In the early days of human history, man hunted the animals that roamed free for food and clothing. Man also used the animal bones as early tools to make things that were useful for themselves as well as adornments for their bodies.
As man was nomadic and traveled after the animals in order to provide food, they were never long enough to grow any of their own crops to sustain them in the months while the animals were not around. In some instances man befriended wolves in a mutually beneficial relationship.

This might have been the first domestication of wild animals that we know about. Since those times, man learned to domesticate other animals like sheep and cattle to provide a constant source of food one man settled down in a specific area and learned to grow their own crops.

Since those times humans developed new technologies that do not require the use of animals for growing crops and transport. Now days they are only seen to provide food and companionship. But they still have an important role to play in our modern society.

Dogs, cats and horses still have a place with humans. We created this bond between man and animal for mutual benefit and although in many cases we do not use them in the fashion that they were domesticated early on, they still provide a vital function in our lives.

Dogs provide companionship and are also a security measure. Dogs are also the only animal that is willing to put his own life in jeopardy for the sake of a human life. Is that not worthy of human love, care and protection.



Cats help to keep rodents and other small animal numbers under control. These rodents, because of all the waste that we produce help to recycle nutrients back into nature that would have otherwise gone into landfills. Without being controlled by cats and other animals, their numbers would get out of control and overrun the human population. Some of these rodents also carry diseases that are transferable to humans. Some of these diseases have the capability of wiping the human race off the face of the earth.

With the help of animals, humans managed to develop as a race to get to where we are today, so please do not forget to take care of your companion animals. They are not there to be abused nor are they there just for entertainment. We are not entitled to mistreat animals, they helped us when we needed them, we must be willing to reciprocate by being there for them when they need us.

Have a great day.

Save the environment for future generations

As the environment becomes degraded due to things like deforestation, destructive fishing practices and pollution, impacts on people's lives and livelihoods mount. For example, forests protect soils. When trees are cut down the top layer of earth, that is vital for growing food, is washed away by rain or blown away by the wind. Yes, this undermines important habitat for beloved and necessary species such as impressive gorillas and spectacular birds, but it also translates into food shortages that cause malnutrition in children and jeopardize maternal health. When children are hungry and mothers are dying, people turn to acts of desperation including the slashing and burning of more forests. This cycle is in no way sustainable, but it puts food on the table today. Similarly, water is increasingly hard to find and when it is found it is often contaminated. Rivers carry pesticides, silt and sand and human waste downstream and when the river meets the sea, dead zones erupt wherein no plants or animals survive. But contaminated water is also killing children and is, in fact, the second most common cause of death in children under the age of five.

The collapse of food and water supplies is driven not only by local actions but also by changing climactic conditions. And let's be clear, the term "changing climactic conditions" is not a futuristic sci-fi fantasy buzzword. It is a here and now reality for billions of people. Right now I am sitting in the middle of Kenya's rainy season and, simply put, there is no rain. When the dry season comes, there is often flooding. Seeds do not grow where they have always grown and farming practices that have always worked do not work anymore. Food and water shortages grow longer, less predictable and more calamitous.

It is not all doom and gloom. There is a tremendous amount of opportunity and there is a growing assemblage of organizations who understand and work toward finding solutions for the interconnected problems of poverty and environmental degradation. Some of these are environmental organizations or organizations focused on the protection of species. The aforementioned David Sheldrick Wildlife Center finds and fixes baby elephants but also works with communities to grow new forests to protect food sources for children. The Jane Goodall Institute, long loved for its important work with chimpanzees, knows that supporting the human condition is mission critical.

Just as importantly, there are development organizations that were established to fight poverty and increasingly understand that in order to be successful, the environment must be safeguarded. Heifer International is a spectacular example of that. Finally, there are sustainable, thoughtful businesses that know environmental work and community empowerment are one and the same. The Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust was formed by the folks at the beautiful, sustainable ecolodge, Campi ya Kanzi. They understand that cervical cancer screenings and new primary school classrooms are necessary right alongside anti-poaching and carbon credit programs.

What can you do to support these efforts? Find organizations that understand the solutions for poverty and environmental degradation are interconnected and support them with your money, your time, your effort. Future generations matter. Long-term sustainability matters. But we will not win the long game if we do not recognize that protecting the lives of children today matters more. It makes us better people. It makes us better environmentalists.

Merry Christmas and a Happy 2016

Christmas and the holiday season is upon us. Celebrations are abound, but hold in mind the animals and the environment during this time.

We are spending time with family and celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ during this time.
But with New Years cerebration approaching at a rapid pace, please, please do not use crackers or fireworks during this time. These devices contribute a lot to animals being frightened to death because of the sudden explosions and it contributes to noise pollution.
Animals hearing is a lot more sensitive to sound than ours. They need their hearing to find food and avoid danger from other predators.

Just take the explosion of one fire work, the sound is loud to us and our hearing is not as affected by the noise. Now multiply that sound by 50 or even a 100 and this is what the poor animals need to deal with. Frightened out of their wits, they try to get away from the noise source. That is when, especially dogs break out of their enclosures to seek a safe and quieter environment. Many animals are injured during this time because of the panic this creates. On the first morning of every new year, the streets are teaming with dogs that escaped their enclosures roaming aimlessly around. Many of them lost as they ran so far from their homes.
Be considerate during this time, not only to other people, but to our fury friends also. They protect us and are our friends.

I wish everybody a Merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous new year.
With all my love
Ewan van Breda
SolarWind

Green House Gasses

There is no doubt that CO2 is accumulating in the atmosphere. The record from Mauna Loa, in Hawaii charts a continuing rise in CO2 concentration since measurements began in 1958, when the level was 315 ppm; the value had reached about 370 ppm by the end of the 20th century, and hit more than 378 ppm in 2004.
Important as changes in atmospheric CO2 undoubtedly are, we need to be aware that this is not the whole story of human-induced greenhouse forcing. In particular, monitoring programms established during the 1980s reveal an upward trend in the levels of two other natural greenhouse gases as well - methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O).
The change in atmospheric CO2 during the period covered by the Mauna Loa record shows a rising trend that seems to have started towards the end of the 18th century.

For some 800 years before that, the CO2 level fluctuated little about a mean value close to 280 ppm. Similar patterns are evident for both methane and nitrous oxide. For each gas, the average level over the first 750 years of these ice-core records (i.e. up to 1750) is taken as a measure of its ‘pre-industrial’ concentration.

The increase in the atmospheric burden of these gases since pre-industrial times is not linear, rather it appears to be accelerating. For example, it took over 200 years for the level of CO2 to rise from 280 to 330 ppm (1750 to around 1975); it has taken just 30 years for it to increase by the same amount, i.e. a further 50 ppm.
But how do we know that the build up of all three gases over recent decades is due to human intervention?

One strong line of evidence that it is comes from an unlikely source - the vast ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica.
As glacier ice is formed by compaction of successive layers of snow, small bubbles of air become trapped. When a sample of ice is drilled out, these air bubbles can be dated quite accurately, and when analysed, provide an archive of past atmospheric composition - including the levels of CO2 , CH4 and N2O.
For the most part, the human impact on the atmospheric burden of natural greenhouse gases can be traced back to activities that effectively add a new source of the gas and/or increase natural emissions in various ways.

In the following pages we will review:

• Carbon dioxide,
• Methane,
• Nitrous oxide, and
• Ozone.

Carbon dioxide

Despite being the feature that characterizes the industrial age, burning fossil fuels is not the only anthropogenic source of CO2. For centuries, people have been clearing forests, burning the wood and turning vast tracts of land over to agricultural use in order to feed an ever-expanding population. The process of deforestation and land-use change also adds to the CO2 content of the atmosphere.

Methane

Methane is generated during the breakdown of organic matter by bacteria that thrive in anaerobic (i.e. oxygen-free) environments - principally in waterlogged soils (bogs, swamps and other wetlands, whence methane's common name of ‘marsh gas’) and in the guts of termites and grazing animals.

Nitrous oxide

Nitrous oxide is part of the natural nitrogen cycle. It is produced by the activities of micro-organisms in soils and sediments. Again, the increase in its atmospheric concentration is thought to result mainly from agricultural activities, such as the application of nitrogenous fertilizers to boost crop yields. Some of the nitrogen ends up in the air as N2O.

In addition, the high-temperature combustion of fossil fuels (or indeed, any kind of vegetation) in air produces some N2O (through reaction between N2 and O2 in the air), along with other nitrogen oxides (notably nitric oxide, NO).

Ozone

Ozone is also a natural component of the lower atmosphere (due in part to transport down from the stratosphere), but the normal background level is low. However, enhanced concentrations of tropospheric ozone are now found in many polluted environments, especially over densely populated industrialized regions.

Here, ozone is generated close to the surface by the action of sunlight on the mix of gaseous pollutants that is typically found in vehicle exhaust fumes - unburnt hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide (CO) and nitric oxide (NO). Ozone is one of the more noxious components of ‘photo-chemical smog’ , since exposure to enhanced levels of the gas is harmful to both human health and plant growth.

Thank you for the support

The raising of funds is difficult these days as the economy worldwide is down.  For this reason, there is a need for partners in planning and executing a project like SolarWind.  And for one single social media network page to successfully do this is almost impossible. Especially for one page as small as the SolarWind page currently is. That is why I partnered with other pages and they kindly enough allowed helping raise funds from their pages as well.

This is why I would like to thank these pages that help with the effort.

The following pages are currently assisting with this effort:

Just Cats

Animal Facts

SharePhoto

Fabulous Picture Collection

SOA - Save Our Animals

ENKI

These pages might not be big pages, but they understand the importance of this project.

They will also be featuring on your supporter’s page for those groups and individuals that are committed to the project the same as I am. They see the need to do more for the environment, endangered animals and cancer awareness.

Another person that committed to supporting this project is an Australian Artist by the name of Michelle Webb. If you click on her name, you will also be taken to her Face Book page.

Like with one of my previous posts, the project is not a non-profit, but it is for non-profits. This is a personal project and I have set up an account that will only deal with this SolarWind Project and nothing else.

From the bottom of my heart, I would like to thank everybody for their support.

Ewan van Breda

Wild animals and the future

Future generations might only see wild animals in books and as stuffed props in museums in the future if we as humans carry on the way we are going today.
At least there are some people that think that the wild animals are worth saving for future generations. I take my hat off to those that started the conservation movements and dedicated their lives to saving these amazing creatures.

One of the people whom I learned a lot from as a child was the late Jacques Cousteau. His expeditions into the underwater world gave many insight into a world very few people have seen. 

He was a French naval officer, explorer, conservationist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water. He co-developed the Aqua-Lung, pioneered marine conservation and was a member of the Académie française.

He made people see the ocean in a different way through education. Make people realize that the world around us consist of more than we can see. He also inspired many to follow his footsteps to learn more about the oceans and the fauna and flora of the seas. His made many documentaries and films about the ocean and it's inhabitants. Starting in 1956 up-to 1996. His final film was released in 1999, after dis death in 1997 titled Lake Baikal: Beneath the Mirror.

Through the example that he set for many years, some marine biologists now find compounds that might be to the advantage to the health of the human race. Medical breakthroughs have been made that help you and me today.

He also supported the balance of nature to be upheld. In November 1991, Cousteau gave an interview to the UNESCO Courier, in which he stated that he was in favor of human population control and population decrease. Widely quoted on the Internet are these two paragraphs from the interview: "What should we do to eliminate suffering and disease? It's a wonderful idea but perhaps not altogether a beneficial one in the long run. If we try to implement it we may jeopardize the future of our species...It's terrible to have to say this. World population must be stabilized and to do that we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. This is so horrible to contemplate that we shouldn't even say it. But the general situation in which we are involved is lamentable".

Jacques-Yves Cousteau died of a heart attack on 25 June 1997 in Paris, aged 87. He was buried in the family vault at Saint-André-de-Cubzac in France. An homage was paid to him by the city by the inauguration of a "rue du Commandant Cousteau", a street which runs out to his native house, where a commemorative plaque was affixed.

As long as we can learn from the example that he set, his legacy will live on and help to save the animals for future generations.

Project Update

As a concept that was conceived about 2 years ago and now in full swing, the planning of the vessel that I will be spending a lot of time on alone is crucial. It is a small living space that will be occupied for at least 200 days without setting foot on land. And this for somebody that is terrified of the open ocean will be a feat in itself.

The main concern for me is safety. As the sea can throw almost anything at you at any time, day or night, it is of utmost importance for me that I will not land myself in the water and hope to be rescued at some stage.

A lot of research has gone into the types of pedal boats used for long distance travel. The one drawback that most of these vessels have is the lack of space for provisions, especially for a journey of this duration.

 ​I have researched the down sides of vessels like the vessel of explorer Jason Lewis that did 4,833 days and 46,505 miles rounding the globe under your own muscle power. As Lewis made regular stops to replenish his provisions, I will not have that luxury. That is why the decision was made to rather go with a catamaran configuration for this journey.

The catamaran configuration is more stable than the mono hull that all these adventurers use, and have a lot more storage room for provisions. There is also more deck space for the solar panels that will provide night time power to the vessel (remember this is a solar and human powered vessel).

The one major down side to using a catamaran configuration is that in the event that the vessel capsizes, it is very difficult to get it right side up. A plan has been made to make use of a new safety device that will assist with getting the vessel back right side up. But about this in later posts as the prototyping is still underway.

The drag induced by the catamaran configuration is in some cases greater that a mono hull vessel, but for safety and storage reasons, this makes more sense than a mono hull. As this will be a non-stop journey, all the provisions that will be needed will need to be carried from day one.

The main factor will be the weight issue of a fully laden vessel. To get the vessel as light as possible, a foam sandwich construction hull will be made. This will reduce the weight of the hull a lot. Another way to get the fully laden weight down is to use dehydrated provisions where possible. This reduction in weight will help with a lower displacement and wetted area of the hull. The lower the wetted area the less drag and the less energy will be required to power the vessel.

More on the vessel in a later post.

Now what are required are contributors and sponsors that will fund the building of the vessel.

If you are aware of any entity, private or corporate that would be interested in helping with the funding please contact me with their details or ask the entity to contact me directly.

Thank you