India’s massive weapon chamber.

We all know that China not only increased their armoury but that also first aircraft carrier was launched, so that it can reinforce its military status in Asia. India’s stocking of armoury was therefore a bit overshadowed but shouldn’t be underestimated. As mentioned by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, India has become the world’s leading weapon importer. In the arms race with China, India focuses on the expansion of its naval forces with a 45 billion Dollar investment for 2012.

Photo credit unknown.

Pakistan’s “secret war”.

Pakistan was also market on the crisis map of 2011. Focusing on the war against the Taliban on the countries borders, there is also a “secret war” against militant separatists in the state Bolochistan, whose claims reach from more autonomy to independence.

An old border dispute in Asia.

The border dispute between Cambodia and Thailand was newly blazed at the beginning of 2011. When in February both sides claimed the Preah Vihear Temple (which lies on the Cambodian side), first shots were fired and the region didn’t seem to come to a stand. Dozens of soldiers have lost their lives and thousands fled the area. Despite several attempts at mediation on both sides, a newly escalation is not unlikely.

Photo credit: HALO Trust.

Pirates apart from the Gulf of Aden.

More and more prosperity toward violence was seen off the cost of Somalia. The Gulf of Aden is still the most dangerous waters for international merchant shipping. But modern piracy seems to become a global problem in 2012. The Gulf of Guinea (on the West coast of Africa) is a new “hot spot” for pirates and Indonesia holds the record for pirate raids.

Drug cartels are geared up for expansion to the South.

No easing of tension seems to be in sight against Mexico’s drug cartels. But their reach is not limited to the US border, where thousands of people died in the drug war. Almost all of South America is involved in this war, yet there has been little notice about this in the news.

An action plan on the US-Mexican border.

Also a topic that has not been in the news was the US approach against illegal immigrants on the Mexican border. Despite president’s Barack Obama’s announced reform of the immigration law, the numbers of deportations have reached a new all time high.

East Europe pulls the Euro brake.

In 2012, Europe’s Euro crisis is not over yet. One thing is clear though: Until further notice, there will be no expansion of the Euro zone. Even though the crisis has already begun in 2011, Estonia joined the common currency. Meanwhile not only Lithuania and Latvia dropped their plans of joining the Euro zone. Also Poland (where the Euro should have been welcomed by January 1st, 2012), Bulgaria, Rumania and Czech Republic pulled the break on the Euro.

A camel shortage as a bad omen?

At the beginning of the “Arabic spring”, the future of the world’s largest oil exporter Saudi-Arabia was unsure. A possible bad omen could be the sinking amount of the camel population. The reason: By now the country already relies on imports.

Camels are the lifeline in any desert.

Nuclear disarmament.

With the stationing of rockets in the Russian enclave Kaliningrad, the continuing dispute between Russia and the NATO reached its high point. Russia doesn’t only threat with the setup of a defense system but the country also considers a withdrawal of the START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty)-agreement with the USA.

Too many laurels for Rwanda?

Rwanda has become well known as Africa’s flagship country. With 7 percent economic growth and many reform initiatives, president Paul Kagame was downright paid court with by the USA. Even though the first US-trade agreement since the genocide of 1998 has become the highlight of the US-Rwandan relationship, Rwanda might get too many laurels beforehand. After critical newspapers have been closed down and opposition members have been jailed, reports of murdered government critics made the headlines.

Charles Moore loves the ocean, especially the widths of the pacific. This changed in 1997 when he and his crew were on their way back home from Hawaii where they had just won the third place in the “Transpac sailing race”. Moore was looking for a fast way to Los Angeles and therefore decided to take a short-cut through the so called “North Pacific Gyre” – one of the most remote places in the ocean. Most sailors avoid this route and fisherman are seen very rarely. Maybe this is because of what Charles Moore found out: the colourful flashing on the sea-surface doesn’t come from fish but plastic garbage.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. For many people, the idea of a “garbage patch” conjures up images of an island of trash floating on the ocean. In reality, these patches are almost entirely made up of tiny bits of plastic, called micro-plastics.

The crew saw plastic parts of all sizes floating on the ocean. Moore recognized disposable razors, bottles, fasteners, CD covers, bags and shoes. “It might sound unbelievable but there was not a single clear spot around us. It didn’t matter where we looked, garbage was floating around us everywhere”, Moore remembers.

As soon as he was back home, the sailor started informing the world about “the worlds largest dumping ground”. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the North Pacific is the most well known example of a gigantic environmental disaster. Even experts can only guess its dramatic magnitude.

The Plastic Garbage Patch is twice the size of Texas. But where did this trash come from? Marine biologists estimate that about 80 % of the litter is from land, either dumped directly into waterways or blown into rivers and streams.

Map of the worldwide garbage vortexes. Apart from the infamous Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is made up of plastics, chemical sludge and other marine debris drawn in by a vortex formed by rotating currents, scientists believe there are four other major gyres and associated garbage patches in the Indian Ocean, North Atlantic, South Atlantic and South Pacific. Illustration Credit: Plastiki.com.

So, does there float one large garbage-carpet between Hawaii and the USA? Or are there two (each one as large as middle Europe)? Because the majority of garbage is underneath the surface (and in depths up to 10 meters), satellite measurings can only show the vague expansion. However it is sure that there’s plastic garbage everywhere. Particularly high is the density in regions where the air current (as in the North Pacific) causes strong ocean vortexes. There are five of such vortexes that experts know of.

Water covers more than 70 % of the planet’s surface. This makes our rivers, lakes and oceans the lifeblood of our planet. Many of the animals living in these habitats may be extinct very soon. Experts say plastic trash has already killed millions of sea birds and marine mammals.

Marine debris can be very harmful to marine life in the gyre. For instance, loggerhead sea turtles often mistake plastic bags for jellies, their favorite food. Albatrosses mistake plastic resin pellets for fish eggs and feed them to chicks, which die of starvation or ruptured organs. Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Of the 225 million tons of synthetic materials (which are produced each year), approximately 10 % lands in the ocean at some point. According to the UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) more than 100 million tons of plastic garbage float at sea.

So what can we do?

The Ocean Conservancy gives a list of 10 tips for helping out:

• Volunteer for a beach or river clean-up effort.
• Put trash in a secure, lidded receptacle – most marine debris starts out on land.
• Properly recycle everything you can in your area.
• When boating, bring your trash back to shore, and ask your marina to handle waste properly.
• Less is more: Don’t buy stuff you don’t need, and choose items that use less packaging.
• Inform and inspire your friends and co-workers to help stop marine debris at the source.
• Bring your own containers for picnics instead of using disposables. Take your own reusable bags whenever you go shopping.
• Write to companies or visit local businesses and encourage them to reuse, recycle, and generate less packaging.
• Put cigarette butts in ashtrays, not on streets, side-walks, or beaches.
• Tell Congress it’s time to stop trashing our ocean. Take action now and send an email to your representative!

Earth’s treasures are unevenly spread; some lie deep in the crust (unattainable for humans), others slumber near the surface. This means bad luck for environmentalists and blessings for the extractive industry. They approach with heavy machines and rip the landscape apart.

The American photographer J. Henry Fair displayed some of these scars in a fantastic photo series called “Industrial Scars”, for which he is well known around the world. Apart from being a photographer, he is also an environmental activist and co-founder and director of the Wolf Conservation Center (WCC).  The WCC promotes wolf conservation by teaching about wolves, their relationship to the environment, and the human role in protecting their future. He works for environmental organizations such as NRDC, Rainforest Alliance or Greenpeace.

About his work he states:

“My work is a response to my vision of society. I see our culture as being addicted to petroleum and the unsustainable consumption of other natural resources, which seems to portend a future of scarcity. My vision is of a different possibility, arrived at through careful husbandry of resources and adjustment of our desires and consumption patterns toward a future of health and plenty. To gear our civilization toward sustainability does not necessitate sacrifice today, as many naysayers would argue, but simply adjustment. There are many societies existing at present that have a standard of living at least as high as ours while consuming and polluting a fraction of what is the norm in the United States. As an artist with a message, one asks oneself: how do I translate my message to my medium such that it will effect the change I want?
At first, I photographed “ugly” things; which is, in essence, throwing the issue in people’s faces. Over time, I began to photograph all these things with an eye to making them both beautiful and frightening simultaneously, a seemingly irreconcilable mission, but actually quite achievable given the subject matter.”

Here are some of his photos (my personal favourite):

The forested mountains, valleys and streams that once stood here are now buried beneath the overburden from mountaintop removal coal mining. It is leveled and then sprayed with a mixture of grass seed and fertilizer – Kayford Mountain, West Virginia.

Removal of Overburden from blasting – Kayford Mountain, West Virginia

Caustic lake – Darrow, Louisiana.

Outlet pipe from phosphate waste impoundment – Lakeland, Florida.

Sulphur stacks at an oil sands upgrader facility – Fort Murray, Canada.

The inside of a holding tank at an oil sands upgrader facility – Fort McMurray, Canada.