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Sources have told Reuters Newsagency that fossil fuel major Royal Dutch Shell is looking to slash up to 40 per cent off the cost of producing oil and gas in a major drive to save cash so it can overhaul its business and focus more on renewable energy and power markets.

Shell’s new cost-cutting review, known internally as Project Reshape and expected to be completed this year, will affect its three main divisions and any savings will come on top of a US$4 billion target set in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis.

Reuters reports reducing costs is vital for Shell’s plans to move into the power sector and renewable energy where margins are relatively low.

Competition is also likely to intensify with utilities and rival oil firms including BP and Total all battling for market share as economies around the world go green.

“We had a great model but is it right for the future? There will be differences, this is not just about structure but culture and about the type of company we want to be,” said a senior Shell source, who declined to be named.

Last year, Shell’s overall operating costs came to US$38 billion and capital spending totalled US$24 billion.

Shell is exploring ways to reduce spending on oil and gas production, its largest division known as upstream, by 30 per cent  to 40 per cent through cuts in operating costs and capital spending on new projects, two sources involved with the review told Reuters.

Shell now wants to focus its oil and gas production on a few key hubs, including the Gulf of Mexico, Nigeria and the North Sea, the sources said.

The company’s integrated gas division, which runs Shell’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) operations as well as some gas production, is also looking at deep cuts, the sources said.

For downstream, the review is focusing on cutting costs from Shell’s network of 45,000 service stations, the world’s biggest, which is seen as one its “most high-value activities” and is expected to play a pivotal role in the transition, two more sources involved with the review told Reuters.

“We are undergoing a strategic review of the organisation, which intends to ensure we are set up to thrive throughout the energy transition and be a simpler organisation, which is also cost competitive.

“We are looking at a range of options and scenarios at this time, which are being carefully evaluated,” a spokeswoman for Shell said in a statement.

Shell’s restructuring drive mirrors moves in recent months by European rivals BP and Eni which both plan to reduce their focus on oil and gas in the coming decade and build new low-carbon businesses.

The review, which company sources say is the largest in Shell’s modern history, is expected to be completed by the end of 2020 when Shell wants to announce a major restructuring.

It will hold an investor day in February 2021.

Speaking to analysts on July 30, Shell Chief Executive Ben van Beurden said Shell had launched a programme to “redesign” the Anglo-Dutch company.

Teams in Shell’s three main divisions are also studying how to reshape the business by cutting thousands of jobs and removing management layers both to save money and create a nimbler company as it prepares to restructure, the sources said.

Shell, which had 83,000 employees at the end of 2019, carried out a major cost-cutting drive after its US$54 billion acquisition of BG Group in 2016, which has helped boost its cash generation significantly in recent years.

Shell’s operating costs, which include production, manufacturing, sales, distribution, administration and research and development expenses, fell by 15 per cent, or roughly US$7 billion, between 2014 and 2017.

However, the sharp global economic slowdown in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic coupled with Shell’s plans to slash its carbon emissions to net zero by 2050 have led to the new push.

Shell cut its 2020 capital expenditure plans by US$5 billion to US$20 billion in the wake of the collapse in oil and gas prices due to the pandemic amid warnings it could have lasting effects on global energy demand.

Mr Van Beurden said in July that Shell was on track to deliver US$3 billion to US$4 billion in cost savings by the end of March 2021, including through job cuts and suspending bonuses.

He said travel restrictions during the pandemic had accelerated the digitalisation of Shell while machine learning was being rolled out to minimise outages and shorten maintenance time at refineries, oil and gas platforms and LNG plants.

Besides cutting costs at its downstream retail business, Shell is pressing ahead with plans to reduce the number of its oil refineries to 10 from 17 last year.

It has already agreed to sell three.

The review of refining operations also includes finding ways to sharply increase the production of low-carbon fuels such as biofuels, chemicals and lubricants.

That could be done by using low-carbon raw materials such as cooking oil, one source said.

Historians and lawyers say recent allegations of mass hysterectomies at a US immigration detention centre are part of a long and troubling history of forced sterilisation in the US.

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/new-allegations-of-mass-hysterectomies-inside-us-detention-centres-are-the-echoes-of-an-awful-past

 

Australia and the United States are among the world's largest polluting countries that have not committed to reaching net-zero emissions.

Bhutan and Suriname

There are two nations that have already achieved carbon neutrality.

The small Himalayan country of Bhutan, which has a population of 820,000 people, has attained Carbon Negative status.

 

One of Bhutan's first wind turbines is seen in the Rubesa village in Wangdue Phodrang.One of Bhutan's first wind turbines is seen in the Rubesa village in Wangdue Phodrang.AFP

 

As of 2015, the country generates just over 1.1 million tonnes of CO2 a year, but the country’s luscious forests are able to absorb that level of pollution, offsetting its net emissions.

Bhutan also exports surplus renewable energy to neighbouring India.

The Republic of Suriname in South America, which has a population of less than 600,000, is also considered carbon-neutral because of its dense rainforests. 

READ MORE HERE:

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/thirty-countries-have-pledged-to-achieve-climate-neutrality-australia-is-not-one-of-them?

 

Indian Creates Vegan Wool From A Wasteland Plant

Intrigued at the sight of hummingbirds using a fibre from a flowering plant to keep their young ones warm, Tamil Nadu-based Gowri Shankar's curiosity about this plant piqued as he was looking out of his window one day. Shankar identified the plant as Calotropis and began to research about the plant's fibre. Five months on, he created an alternative to wool that is wholly plant-sourced and vegan. Shankar created 'Weganool' by using the hollow and light cellulose fibres of shrubs Calotropis Gigantea and Calotropis Procera; his faux wool has a composition of 70% organic cotton and 30% calotropis plant, and it could just be the next thing in the fashion scene! Production of the wool is done by hand by rural women near Auroville in the outskirts of Pondicherry in Tamil Nadu.

 

The natural fibers used to create vegan wool. Photo courtesy: Faborg.in

 

The Plant 

Calotropis, is a wasteland shrub and it yields a durable fiber (commercially known as Bowstring of India) used to make ropes, carpets, fishing nets and sewing thread. Calotropis Gigantea and Calotropis Procera are Ayurvedic plants with medicinal properties and grow all over India. The plant is a tall, flowering shrub that thrives in dry and harsh growing conditions without human intervention, water, fertilizers or pesticides in Africa and several Southeast Asian and Middle Eastern countries. It is also known as giant milkweed, and has thick stalks and pale flowers.
 

Seeds from the time of Jesus and the Maccabees are being renewed—and grown amid the fruits of Jewish-Arab unity.

We all know the resurrection story from 2,000 years ago described in the pages of the Christian bible. Recently, a restoration of life, in a sense, took place in the Holy Land—but with 2,000-year-old dry date seeds from the same region where the religious legends began.

In the 1960s, when archaeologist Yigal Yadin dug at Masada, an ancient fort that is one of Israel’s most popular tourist attractions, he found a catchment of Judean date seeds.

 

Through radiocarbon analysis, the seeds of the species Phoenix dactylifera were shown to be around 1,990 years old, or from 35 BCE to 65 CE, when the Roman philosophers Strabo and Pliny were writing about the Judean date’s medicinal qualities.

15 years ago, Dr. Elaine Soloway of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, along with Dr. Sarah Salon of Hadassah Medical Center, were able to miraculously germinate one of the seeds.

In honor of its longevity, it was named Methuselah, after the longest-living human being in the Bible (Genesis 5: 21-27). Methuselah, however, being a male tree, would not be able to produce a date without a female partner. So in 2014, six seeds were germinated from 32 that were unearthed in archaeological digs in the Judean Desert and near the Dead Sea, from a similar age.

They were also given Biblical names, but only one female—Hannah—flowered.

RELATEDMuslim Cleric Who Hid 262 Christians During Attacks is Honored by the U.S.

In the spring of this year, she was pollinated using the powdery grains from Methuselah. And soon, Hannah produced 111 dates that were recently harvested..

Most of the semi-dry dates with reddish-blonde color will be used for research, but the masterminds behind the project got to taste a few, with Dr. Soloway enjoying the “honey or caramel aftertaste.”

Researchers Dr. Elaine Soloway of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies (left) with Dr. Sarah Salon of Hadassah Medical Center, moments after picking the dates – MARCOS SCHONHOLZ

The home of these extraordinary trees is the Kibbutz Ketura campus of the Arava Institute located on the Israeli-Jordanian border in the dramatic Arava Valley—with the steep, mile-high, red mountains of southern Jordan – biblical Edom – on one side and the whitish limestone from ancient ocean floors on the Israeli side, in a section of the Great Rift Valley between Syria and Africa.

Photo by MARCOS SCHONHOLZ, Arava Institute

There is something else remarkable about the home of these dates. Since 1996, the Arava Institute has brought together Israeli, Palestinian, and Jordanian college students to learn how to cooperatively solve the regional and global challenges of our time.

 

Foster cross-border environmental cooperation through discourse at a time when it is so needed, the leaders here engage civic organizations and individuals representing Jews and Arabs with both state and private interests to discuss, develop, and negotiate formal and informal environmental agreements.

CHECK Out: Jewish People Who Have Recovered From COVID Have Donated Half of All the Plasma Used in US Treatments

The Arava Institute reminds participants that the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is about land—more precisely, the borders that nations draw on the land. When the land is looked upon solely as a geopolitical instrument, it is viewed as one of the major stumbling blocks to any reconciliation or just settlement of the conflict. However, when the land is approached, as it is at Arava, from an environmental perspective—which knows no political borders, walls and fences—new frameworks open up, including in the political sphere: New dynamics are created.

The student body of the Arava Institute is made up mostly of Jews, Christians, and Muslims—and in those three religions, born in the deserts of the region, dates and date trees have always played an important role, according to Rabbi Michael M. Cohen, who teaches at the Arava Institute and also at Vermont’s Bennington College.

“Following the example of Muhammad, Muslims traditionally break their daily fast during Ramadan with a date. In the Jewish Torah, dates are considered one of the seven most important species of the Land of Israel. And Jesus was reportedly welcomed into Jerusalem with his supporters waving date palm branches.”

RELATEDIsraeli and Palestinian Farmers Find Peace Through Olive Oil

Grown on this campus steeped in faith, the dates of Methuselah and Hannah, like all the great redemption stories, remind us that what today appears to be dead or beyond reach can in fact be revived to help create a better, more just, and redeemed tomorrow.

WoW!

 

Massive three mile wide meteorite crater that formed some 100 MILLION years ago is discovered by gold miners in Australia's OutbackThree-mile-wide Australian meteorite crater formed 100M years ago

Miners digging for gold in Australia's Outback discovered a three-mile long meteorite crater, dubbed Ora Banda Crater, which was created some 100 million years ago by a 660 feet wide meteor smashing into the Earth. The team discovered shatter cones (top inset) among the site which form from the high pressure, high velocity shock wave produced by a large impacting object - 'tell-tale signs of a meteorite impact.' There are also sediments (bottom inset) with ancient plant material that could provide a more accurate date to when the impact occurred.

Wow amazing, thanks Celia for posting that.

Yes I was pretty amazed at it too.

Doctor Who actor Tom Baker honoured by scientists who name a 450 million-year-old trilobite after him Fossils: Doctor Who actor Tom Baker honoured by scientists who name a trilobite after him 

Australian palaeontologists have named a newly-found species of trilobite - a segmented sea creature from 450 million years ago - in honour of the actor. The fossil - Gravicalymene bakeri - was found preserved in shale rocks in Northern Tasmania that date back to the Late Ordovician period. Mr Baker said that he was 'delighted' to have the specimen named after him.

:) Nice story.

Hidden history of York's medieval city walls to be uncovered in major of excavation of an ancient tower that is cracking under the weight of its famous walkway

A stretch of York's city walls between Baile Hill, the visible remains of a motte and bailey castle, and Bitchdaughter Tower will undergo a four month repair project.

Such old walls, from the link ...

The work will begin on October 7 and councillor Keith Aspden, leader of City of York Council, says it is 'incredibly important' to preserve the walls. 'The original walls were built by the Romans in 71AD and by carrying out this project, we will better understand when the tower was built and what earlier versions of the walls looked like,' he adds.

 

The hospital I had some major surgery was right by the Minister which is right by the wall, remember being in the bed and watching people walk passed the top of the wall;   have spent many hours around the walls from one side of the city to the other, many happy times have been spent there.

 

Yorks ancient wall.

Cash to preserve York's medieval city wallsPublished25 April 2017York City WallsIMAGE COPYRIGHTGETTY IMAGESimage captionThe walls stretch for over two miles around the city

Preservation work costing £1.5m is to be carried out on some of the best preserved medieval city walls in England.

York's city walls run for 2.1 miles (3.4km) and include five main bars (gateways) and 45 towers.

The current walls were largely built in the 13th and 14th centuries but include remains from earlier periods.

The council spends £100,000 a year on maintenance but said the additional funds were needed for major repairs.

Read more about this and other stories from York and North Yorkshire

The money will fund a five-year programme of works due to begin this year.

Micklegate BarIMAGE COPYRIGHTGETTY IMAGESimage captionRestoration work will also be carried out on the city's bars or gates

The work will include replacing steps at Monk Bar, improvement works at Micklegate Bar and repairs and restoration work at a number of the towers.

Councillor David Carr, Conservative leader of City of York Council, said: "York's city walls are the most complete and finest in England, making them one of our most treasured and significant historical assets.

"This is why it's so important we continue to invest in preserving and protecting them."

Historic York walls to get £350,000 'urgent' repair grant - BBC News

England: Time travel | Warwick Daily News

York walls - Topic - Digital Journalhttps://www.yorkwalls.org.uk/?page_id=3697

Wonderful they are working to preserve them.

Britain, Canada, EU throw weight behind 2030 biodiversity protection goal, Australia declinesBy David Twomey -  108 0 

Britain and Canada joined the European Union in pledging to protect 30 per cent of their land and seas by 2030 to stem “catastrophic” biodiversity loss and help galvanise support for broader agreement on the target ahead of a United Nations summit.

Australia’s conservative Liberal-National government said it refused to sign the global pledge endorsed by 64 countries committing them to reverse biodiversity loss because it was inconsistent with Australia’s policies.

The Australian government of Prime Minister Scott Morrison was invited to sign but refused because the 10-point plan calls for commitments that are inconsistent with Australian policy, including a greater ambition to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and reach net zero emissions by 2050.

Reuters Newsagency reports with the twin crises of climate change and wildlife loss accelerating, leaders are trying to build momentum ahead of the meeting in Kunming, China, in May, where nearly 200 countries will negotiate a new agreement on protecting nature.

“We must act now, right now,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said.

“We cannot afford dither and delay because biodiversity loss is happening today and it is happening at a frightening rate. Left unchecked, the consequences will be catastrophic for us all,” Mr Johnson said.

“Extinction is forever, so our action must be immediate.”

Without action, 30 per cent to 50 per cent of all species could be lost by 2050, threatening economic and social prosperity, a report by The Nature Conservancy charity this month said.

For example, losing bees, butterflies and other pollinators could cause a drop in annual agricultural output worth US$217 billion.

Scientists have said a minimum of 30 per cent of the planet must be safeguarded, through protected areas and conservation.

Reuters reports a draft of the Kunming agreement includes this pledge.

While the pledges did not detail specific actions nor funding plans, protected areas are usually managed to ensure the long-term conservation of nature.

This can mean curbing or banning commercial or extraction activities, ensuring unspoiled natural areas remain unspoiled, or restoring and maintaining ecosystems such as forests and wetlands.

“We have both the responsibility and the opportunity,” Canada’s Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said.

“We have the second largest land mass, a fifth of the world’s freshwater, and the longest coastline in the world, that together are critical for biodiversity and for securing carbon in nature in the fight against climate change,” Mr Wilkinson said.

In England, where 26 per cent of land is already protected, the government said an extra 4000 square kilometres would be safeguarded.

However, E J Milner-Gulland, professor of biodiversity at the University of Oxford said: “It’s great to get another four per cent, but that, in itself, is not going to be a transformative thing in this country, and particularly if there’s no funding.”

The EU’s executive European Commission has proposed a target for the 27-country bloc to legally protect 30 per cent of its land and sea by 2030.

That would safeguard four per cent more land and 19 per cent more sea than today.

Speaking at the United Nations’ Nature Finance Forum, Germany’s Federal Minister Gerd Mueller said it planned to increase its €500 million annual investment in protecting biodiversity in low- and middle-income countries, without elaborating.

Germany also plans set up a fund with public and private lenders to provide long-term financing to protected areas in those countries, he said.

A growing body of evidence suggests that it pays to protect nature.

Expanding areas under conservation could yield a return of at least US$5 for every US$1 spent, according to a paper by more than 100 researchers, published in July.

The Nature Conservancy report said the world needed to spend an extra US$598 billion to US$824 billion each year over the next decade to reverse the extinction crisis.

Separately, more than 60 countries, also including EU, Britain and Canada, committed to 10 actions to reverse the loss of biodiversity by 2030, including integrating nature protection into COVID-19 recovery plans, increasing financing to protect the natural world, and clamping down on marine pollution and deforestation.

The pledge was signed by countries including Mexico, Bangladesh, Germany and Norway.

Notable absences were Brazil and Indonesia, two hotspots of deforestation, and China and the United States, the world’s top two emitters of greenhouse gases.

A real shame that Australia did not sign on.

Yes, Incognito,  and Morrison supposed to be a Christian I thought they were supposed to be caring folk --

 

Being a Christian does not make you a person that cares about the evironment, sadly. They think God will take care of everything, it is in God's hands, too bad there are so many people playing God these days.

 

Earth may have lost up to 60 per cent of its atmosphere in the collision that is thought to have formed the Moon 

New research led by Durham University involved more than 300 supercomputer simulations designed to show the consequence of a huge collision on the planet.

Study warns Greenland ice sheet loss already ‘unprecedented’, set to accelerateBy David Twomey -  74 0 

Scientists have confirmed melting of the Greenland ice sheet has hit a rate unmatched in the last 12,000 years and is accelerating.

Research published today in the journal Nature predicts that the Greenland ice sheet will be melting by as much as six times its current rate by the end of the century if greenhouse emissions are not reduced.

However, if the best case scenario can be achieve the forecast by the United Nations’ IPCC for its increasing melt rate can be limited to around 40 per cent greater than its present rate.

As the earth emerged from the last Ice Age around 11,000 years ago, the Arctic experienced a warm period or thermal maximum between about 10,000 and 7000 years before present.

Researchers presumed that the rate of melting of the Greenland ice sheet in that period was higher than it is today.

Instead, they found that over the past 20 years, the southwestern Greenland ice sheet where this research was focussed, has been losing ice at an rate of about 6100 billion tonnes a century on average, around 100 billion tonnes more than at its previous historical peak, according to author Professor Jason Briner from the University of Buffalo.

“Our results suggest that yes, this century we will experience ice-loss rates not just similar to those in the past but exceeding those of the past, even under strict carbon emissions scenarios,” Professor Briner said.

As well as comparing present-day melting with the past, they looked at how different global greenhouse gas emissions trajectories would impact melting over the coming century.

They modelled the IPCC’s best-case emissions scenario, called Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 2.6, and the worst-case emissions scenario called RCP8.5.

Under RCP 2.6, emissions are drastically reduced starting now and we achieve net-negative emissions this century.

That is, we get our emissions to zero and also draw greenhouse gases from the atmosphere through technology or by boosting natural sinks like forests and blue carbon.

Under RCP 2.6 we limit global average warming to within two degrees Celsius by 2100.

On the other hand, under RCP 8.5 we continue burning fossil fuels as per usual, making no substantial efforts to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions through to 2100.

Under the RCP 2.6 scenario, their models forecast that melting of the southwestern Greenland ice sheet would increase to around 8800 billion tonnes per century on average by 2100, about a forty per cent increase on today’s rate.

However, under the worst-case RCP 8.5 scenario, they forecast the southwestern Greenland ice sheet could be losing up to 35,900 billion tonnes per century, an increase of nearly 600 per cent on today’s melting rate.

Although their study area didn’t encompass the entire ice sheet, Professor Briner said Greenland tends to melt fairly uniformly.

“Based on reconstructions of ice sheet changes over the past several decades, it has been shown that when the ice sheet loses mass in our study area, it loses mass across its entire surface,” he said.

“When rates of ice loss are high across our study area, they are high across Greenland.”

The study is an important demonstration of the difference that we can make by cutting emissions, according to Dr David Etheridge from the CSIRO’s Climate Science Centre.

“The range of predictions shows a high sensitivity to emissions scenarios with the possibility to limit ice loss with low emissions,” Dr Etheridge said.

Modelling sea level rise was outside the bounds of this study, but the researchers tentatively suggest that the worst-case scenario melting from the southwestern Greenland ice sheet would add around 10 centimetres to sea levels this century.

If that was scaled to the entire ice sheet, that would likely be “doubled or tripled”, Professor Briner said.

Frightening.

 

Glacier Comparison 1941-2004This glacier was covered in ice and snow in 1941 and in 2004, it’s sad to see that most of it has melted and now it’s all water.

" data-medium-file="https://mperkins11.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/meltingglacier2.jpg?w=248" data-large-file="https://mperkins11.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/meltingglacier2.jpg?w=320">https://uavcoach.com/drone-photos-iceland-glaciers/

This a a comparison from 1941 to 2004. It’s sad to see how much ice and snow has actually melted and turned into water.

I have not been to Iceland but a few times to Norway and have seen similar glacier.

Wow when you see it like that it is no doubt the earth is heating up, very sad, it also causes other environmental issues too. You can understand now why polar bears are struggling and heading into towns more looking for food in some areas.

 

 

 

Baby’s got blue eyes… and so has everyone else! Indonesian tribe have piercing features due to a genetic fluke

Members of a tribe on Buton Island, Indonesia, have Waardenburg Syndrome, affecting pigmentationThe syndrome can affect hear loss but also causes an extremely rare electric blue colour in their eyesKorchnoi Pasaribu, from Jakarta, Indonesia, photographed the tribe during a visit to the island in September  

An indigenous tribe on an Indonesian island who have uniquely piercing blue eyes due to a genetic fluke have been captured in a stunning set of photographs.

The Buton people are from Indonesia's 19th largest island, Buton Island, which is located in the southeast Sulawesi region of Indonesia. 

They are divided into several smaller tribes of which some have a rare condition known as Waardenburg Syndrome, which affects pigmentation

This leaves them with electric blue eyes, something that is extremely rare in Indonesia, where most people have dark hair and dark eyes.

A boy from indigenous tribe on Buton Island in Indonesia that have uniquely piercing blue eyes due to the hereditary Waardenburg syndrome poses with a leaf A boy from indigenous tribe on Buton Island in Indonesia that have uniquely piercing blue eyes due to the hereditary Waardenburg syndrome poses with a leafThe Waardenburg syndrome is a hereditary genetic mutation that is estimated to be present in a some form in 1 in 42,000 people  

The Waardenburg syndrome is a hereditary genetic mutation that is estimated to be present in a some form in 1 in 42,000 people

In addition to its sometimes startling effect on eye pigmentation, including causing eyes of different colours, Waardenburg syndrome can also lead to a loss of hearing In addition to its sometimes startling effect on eye pigmentation, including causing eyes of different colours, Waardenburg syndrome can also lead to a loss of hearing

The Waardenburg syndrome is a hereditary genetic mutation that is estimated to be present in a some form in 1 in 42,000 people. 

In addition to its sometimes startling effect on eye pigmentation, including causing eyes of different colours, it can also lead to a loss of hearing.

The Buton tribe was photographed by Korchnoi Pasaribu, a geologist from the capital of Jakarta, Indonesia, during a visit to the island on September 17.

The 38-year old photographer and father of two has been documenting life in rural Indonesia since September 2019, with a particular focus on its many tribes and cultural heritage.

The Buton tribe was photographed by Korchnoi Pasaribu, a geologist from the capital of Jakarta, Indonesia, during a visit on September 17, 2020. This image is titled Heal The World The Buton tribe was photographed by Korchnoi Pasaribu, a geologist from the capital of Jakarta, Indonesia, during a visit on September 17, 2020. This image is titled Heal The WorldThis photograph of a Buton boy with Waardenburg syndrome is titled One Humanity 
 A tribesman in traditional dress has startlingly blue eyes Korchnoi Pasaribu has been documenting life in rural Indonesia since September 2019, with a particular focus on its many tribes and cultural heritageWith a size of 1,700 square miles, Buton Island is one of Indonesia's larger islands. Its population totals just under 450,000 people of which many live in small, isolated tribes With a size of 1,700 square miles, Buton Island is one of Indonesia's larger islands. Its population totals just under 450,000 people of which many live in small, isolated tribes

He said that photography is not his full-time profession, but rather his love and hobby.

Pasaribu said: 'I actually work as a geologist, at nickel mining, and photography is my hobby.'

He said he found the blue eyed tribe inspiring because they are so unique.

Pasaribu said: 'Blue eyes are unique and beautiful and they are my inspiration. Blue is the favourite eye colour for me.'

Pasaribu said he found the blue eyed tribe inspiring because they are so unique. He said: 'Blue eyes are unique and beautiful and they are my inspiration. Blue is the favourite eye colour for me' Pasaribu said he found the blue eyed tribe inspiring because they are so unique. He said: 'Blue eyes are unique and beautiful and they are my inspiration. Blue is the favourite eye colour for me'The Buton people are from Indonesia's 19th largest island, Buton Island, which is located in the Southeast Sulawesi region of Indonesia The Buton people are from Indonesia's 19th largest island, Buton Island, which is located in the Southeast Sulawesi region of Indonesia

Indonesia is a vast archipelago with over 350 dialects and subcultures. 

With a size of 1,700 square miles, Buton Island is one of Indonesia's larger islands. 

Its population totals just under 450,000 people of which many live in small, isolated tribes. 

The majority of the island is covered with rainforest.

 

 

Fascintating stuff, I wonder though if there water source is not tainted with chemicals from mining or the fish they eat is full of toxins too.

I was wondering why all those eyes were swollen beneath them?  Or would it be playing in the river so much cause it?

The river could have toxic chemicals too, all sorts of mining use chemicals and in these poorer countries with not enough rules and regulations the environmental damage is very significant, and if these people are still living on/off the land then it would make sense to me they are suffering from some sort of toxicity, and that to say it is genetic is just shifting the blame away from big mining companies. I would be interested to know more about if these people do live near any mines or run off from mines, it was just a feeling I had when I read it, if anyone knows anything more, would be happy to hear more.

Yes but considering that this is an area where Dutch explorers have been settling for many years, the blue eyes could have come from their forebears?

WoW   I wonder who will be out in the cold looking at this?

 

Mars and the moon are meeting in the sky TONIGHT, as the Red Planet makes its closest approach to Earth in years 

Mars is making its closets approach to Earth and when the moon rises, the pair will appear to meet in the night sky. The conjunction starts at 11:35pm ET Friday, October 2.

Europe's largest Amazon warehouse in Essex unveils vast new 'solar system' on its roof made up of 11,500 solar panels - enough to power 700 homes for a yearEurope's largest Amazon warehouse unveils vast new 'solar system' on its roof

The impressive installation was unveiled on Thursday at Amazon's fulfilment centre in Tilbury, Essex - the second largest Amazon facility in the world and the largest in Europe. The solar development is part of Amazon's Climate Pledge, launched last year, to be powered by 100 per cent renewable energy by 2025

Impressive, more big corps are taking on renewable energy and not waiting for Governments. We will see more of this.

I was wondering how effective this is in the colder climates though?

I can understand it would be good in their summers but during the winter?

They would store more on sunny days with batteries, I would think.

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