The cat, Pippi, and the dog, LillyThey say ‘fighting like cats and dogs’, so the creatures presumably know a lot about conflict. We have a dog and recently got a cat and spent about a month getting them to not fight. It’s been Mashallah, successful so far. Right now, they’re play-fighting under my sarong, which is quite unpleasant for me, ...
Photo courtesy of Forbes Sri Lanka has had multiple reports of threats posed to the lives of blue whales off its southern coast, with incidents having increased in frequency in the recent past. Reports indicate that nine blue whale strandings and fifteen whale mortalities occurred between January 2010 and April 2012 and four blue whale deaths between January and May ...
Photo courtesy of WNPS Today is World Habitat Day “International days and weeks are occasions to educate the public on issues of concern, to mobilize political will and resources to address global problems, and to celebrate and reinforce achievements of humanity.” United Nations Observances In 1985, the United Nations declared that the first Monday in October is celebrated as World Habitat ...
Illustration by Mark Garlick, Science Source (via)The dinosaurs dealt with much worse climate change than us (the air was literally on fire) and somehow survived. The terrible lizards got shrunk down to rotisserie size, but they were still alive. After thousands of years, they even thrived, coming back as ‘terror birds’ in time. As I’ve written, we should be so ...
The cat and my wife, who claimed to not like catsThey say write what you know and, right now, I’ve got a cat literally crawling all over me. It may not be of particular interest, but he’s in front of the keyboard so this is what you get.Our daughter has always wanted a cat but A) we have a dog ...
Right now, the urgency of clean water and organic food has garnered our attention. But, what about the air we breathe? Humans can survive for 30 days without eating, three days without drinking, yet only three minutes without breathing. In fact, 70% of what we consume is air, which amounts to just over 2,000 gallons per day. It’s no secret ...
Photo courtesy of Dumidu Padeniya Today is World Elephant Day There are less than 500,000 wild elephants in the world. These comprise of just three families, the African Bush (Savannah) Elephant, the African Forest Elephant and the Asian Elephant; all are classified as being endangered. Most of these live on the African continent. Of the Asian Elephant, current estimates place ...
Photos courtesy of Mahendra Dhammika The narrow, winding road at Kadugannawa is littered with small roadside shops selling corn, grapefruit and the local favourite – polos and roti, coconut flatbread with a side of baby jackfruit curry. We stopped for the roti at a small shop with a big view. The one thing that kept us from absorbing this forest ...
Photos courtesy of WNPS Today is Sri Lanka Leopard Day In 2021, the Wildlife & Nature Protection Society (WNPS), Sri Lanka’s oldest such organisation (the third in the world), with the aid of the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC), persuaded the government to declare August 1 of every year as Sri Lankan Leopard Day. It was on August 1 that ...
Which of your most basic needs do you worry about fulfilling most? For most people, it’s food, water, and a roof over their head — and they’re not wrong. But few, if any, prioritise clean, breathable air the same way, and it shows. In December 2022, Sri Lanka experienced a sudden drop in air quality levels. Around the country, a ...
Vincent Van Gogh, Factories At Asnieres, viewed from Clichy. Which I saw in the Chicago Art MuseumI’m taking the train from Chicago to St. Louis. The view from the window is green, but it ain’t green. It’s the artificial striations of cornfields, the neutered pastures of grass; it’s pastoral, not natural. It’s green, but it’s a processed green. It’s empty ...
Ancient Egyptian cat under a chair (via)Humans think we’ve built something special, but I’m not so sure. If you show any of our civilizational marvels to animals they just blink at us. We think this is because they’re dumb, but what if they’re right and we’re wrong?Humans — because we perceive things the same way — take for granted that ...
Agan Harahap, Shopping, 2012I was emptying out the fridge and thinking, we’re just scavengers. Humans think we’re the top of the food chain, noble hunters, but who’s hunting? We just pick up stuff from the bottom of the industrial supply chain. We’re scavengers.Everything in this fridge is in some state of suspended decay (some of it already decayed, which is ...
Photo courtesy of Newscutter Increased deforestation, greenhouse gas emission, coal mining, chemical waste and solid waste mismanagement are some of the grave global environmental issues faced at present. The government’s initiative to establish a Climate Change University reflects Sri Lanka’s proactive efforts towards mitigating the impacts of climate change. Despite the hardline economic measures that have been introduced in a ...
Photo courtesy of WNPS Today is World Environment Day Policymakers cursed with a lack of original thinking, especially with the possibility of elections in the offing, resort to knee jerk reactions to long standing problems rather than seek informed advice and have the patience to wait for success. This, of course, is unrealistic in this day and age of politics ...
Far, very farsky bends down, to kiss the oceanFatigue Sun at day endpaints there beautifulI paddle, paddle with my penreaching there, ambitiousSinging birds fly over melight and happyWhere are they heading?Are they tooin search of the horizon...
How can the most ambitious renewable power project in Sri Lanka can have this many detrimental impacts on the environment and the local communities of Mannar? Thambapawani, a derivation of the name after which Sri Lanka was supposedly called by King Vijaya upon his arrival on the island, is the country’s first large scale wind farm, started in 2019 and ...
Photo courtesy of WNPS Today is International Day of Forests “According to Global Forest Watch, in 2021 Sri Lanka lost 13.3kha of natural forest. The same source indicates that between 2013 and 2021, 100% of tree cover lost was of natural forests (202kha). Though the figures for 2022 are yet to be calculated and confirmed, from the multitude of media ...
