Simon

Check out this video from Al Jazeera's Earthrise about aquapods, which they say could be the future of sustainable fishing.     "With the global demand for fish on the rise and wild fish stocks depleting just as fast, the need to find an alternative to damaging shallow water fish farms is as urgent as ever. Marine engineer Steve Page believes he has found a solution. The Aquapod is a giant structure which can hold up to 70,000 fish. It is submerged in deep water so that any uneaten food and fish waste is washed away by strong ocean currents, minimising the damage to local ecosystems. Working in Mexico's Baja Peninsula, Steve and his team are hoping their method of farming will help restore wild stocks to the ocean by preventing overfishing and offer a lifeline to fishing communities across the world. Russell Beard goes deep sea diving in the Sea of Cortez to see the Aquapod in action and back on land visits the hatchery producing the fingerlings which would make their alternative farming operation totally sustainable."   What do you think? Could this be the future of fishing? Is it sustainable or is it just factory farming underwater?

Greenpeace boats violently rammed by Spanish Navy during peaceful protest, two activists were injured. Support the activists! Tell the Spanish government freedom of speech is more important than freedom to drill for oil.     Greenpeace writes:   Spanish authorities responded to a peaceful protest against oil drilling in international waters by ramming Greenpeace boats. The boats were severely damaged, and one of the activists was knocked overboard and later hospitalised. She'll be recovering for months, but it could have been much worse. Now they've detained our ship because we dared to occupy the ecologically pristine piece of ocean where the oil company, Repsol, has been given permission to drill in total disregard of everyone’s right to a clean and healthy environment. We're not giving up, but we need your help to be heard. We need international pressure to support the Canary Islanders and people throughout Spain, who want to block this oil drilling. The tourism industry in Spain supports hundreds of thousands of jobs, and the Canary Islands are a popular tourist destination - so the government has good reason to listen to you. Tell them freedom of speech and protection of the ocean are more important than the profits of a multinational oil company like Repsol.   Click here to write to the Spanish government!   Also read: Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise detained in Spain following oil protest

This '>amazing video will warm your heart and make you cry tears of joy. A chimpanzee named Wounda is being released into the wild by Dr. Jane Goodall and some keepers. Before Wounda leaps out into freedom, she gives Goodall a long hug.

How much of the public space belongs to vehicles? This brilliant visual show how much public space we cede to cars in our cities.   > Artist unknown.   Are our cities designed for people or cars?

A new study by the Governor’s Highway Safety Association shows that cyclist deaths in the US are rising. Between 2010 and 2012, a total of 722 people were killed while riding their bike on US roads, which amounts to a 16 percent increase. The increase is drastically high when compared to deaths in vehicles which only had a 1 percent increase during the same period. The people involved in bicycle fatalities are mainly adult and male, whom lives in large urban areas. Between 2010 and 2012, adults represented 84 percent of cyclist deaths and almost 70 percent of all bicycling fatalities happened in large cities – with more than half concentrated in just six states: California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Michigan, and Texas. “These are high population states with many urban centers, and likely reflect a high level of bicycle exposure and interaction with motor vehicles,” said the report’s author, Dr. Allan Williams. A large contribution to bicycle fatalities are a lack of helmet use, with at least two-thirds of the fatally injured cyclists not wearing helmets. Another major culprit is alcohol. About 28 percent of the cyclists, over age 16, involved in these fatal accidents had a blood alcohol content above the legal limit to drive. But while fatal bike accidents are rising, they are still only representing around two percent of overall motor vehicle-related fatalities in the US. This number has remained pretty much constant since 1975, when 1,003 people were killed while riding their bike. Why do you think fatal bike accidents are rising? What could authorities do to increase the safety for cyclists?

I'm currently reading Metro 2033 by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky. The book tells the story about a post-apocalyptic world set in the Moscow Metro where the last survivors hide after a global nuclear holocaust.