ESA, the European Space Agency aims to understand Earth, secure the environment and benefit the economy. As part of the global monitoring system it offers many educational materials, but also beautiful images of many places on Earth. Europe under snow in March or New Zealand all look impressive. The negative impacts, such as London's pollution are also very clearly displayed. Check out how the smog eats along the transport arteries at rush hours. Good resources.

Today the front page of the paper-version of the S.M.H. features a huge picture of a hunter standing in a rainforest. The 1st sentence runs as follows: "If the tourists are coming to crocodile country, then it is time for the crocodile to go" To boost paying tourists to come to the World HeritageNational Park Kakadu, they are 'dispersing' (a rich verb in Australia) and 'disposing  thoughtfully' of hundreds of crocodiles.

212- million- years-old croc-like reptiles were recorded. A12 m long reptile has been around  for  110 million years ago, weighing 10 tons. In Australia it has been recorded, that it lived 40 million years ago and 'is very similar to today's modern-day freshwater crocodile' . Even in Germany they existed 49 million years ago.
A Jurassic 10 m croc had apparently a near bullet-proof skin.

After surviving dinosaurs and a long evolutionary time, this species now gets utilised as raw materials for bags, kebabs, casino entertainment or are hunted privately or professionally smuggled.

If safety instructions are followed by visitors and locals, it would be possible to coexist and  entertain a sustainable form of tourism. In only 200 years Australia has a superlative record in eliminating the species of this country. Now the survivor of ancient times is no longer welcome to share its Lebensraum with homo sapiens.

The investigative Mother Jones (May/June 2005 issue)runs an interesting  article  on ExxonMobil 'ideas lobbying'. In 'Some like it hot', Chris Mooney elaborates on the ExxonMobil's $55 million budget over the past six years to 'politicize science' and bend perception.

"Forty public policy groups have this in common: They seek to undermine the scientific consensus that humans are causing the earth to overheat. And they all get money from ExxonMobil." 

The European study 'Effects of ski piste preparation on alpine vegetation' found that 'enlargement of ski pistes, machine-grading of ski piste areas and increasing use of artificial snow' degraded the alpine ecosystem.

One would think, that the same holds true for the Australian Alps

"Snow compaction and the removal of boulders and vegetation cover, the development of noisy ski fields, villages, car parks and roads have altered, reduced and broken up (the) Pygmy-possum habitat."