The UN designated

2009 as the International Year of Natural Fibers and Astronomy
2010 as the International Year of Biodiversity and Youth
2011 as the International Year of Forests and Chemistry

The trend seems to be to pick two significant topics of which one is environment-related.

Just in case you are wondering what comes out of these International Years, there are reports that are produced at the end of each year that summarize all the events and projects that took place all over the world related to that topic. Good luck finding them. They are not all in one place.

In concept, I think these International Years are a wonderful idea. I have found some inspiration in them and have dreamt of careers in the chosen areas! Last year I wanted to be a Rocket Scientist. This year, I want to grow up to be Biodiverse :) Next year, Tapi and I will live in the forest and play hunter-gatherer! (Chill out Mom! It's a joke! We are vegetarians still. We will wear tofu skin and only gather)

If you ask me, the UN can promote these International Years better! I recommend taking the help of Hallmark Cards who did such a wonderful job of promoting Friendship Day! UN can also try a facebook campaign like "I like it on" and "what color is your bra" or "change your profile picture to a cartoon from your childhood". I suggest "post your favorite animal sound"! Heehaw! (or Gobble Gobble Gobble... if you want to make a statement about extinction during this holiday season) (or Baaaaa if you don't think I am funny) (or Cuckoo... if you know me!)

I know Biodiversity is a term used to describe the variety of life on earth, but I didn't quite see it as "a measure of our planet's health", which is what I believe it is! I guess my line of thought is skewed by the fact that other planets that can't brag about biodiversity seem quite healthy! To me, something is healthy if it is working the way it ought to be working! I suppose, the way the earth ought to be working is by being home to a variety of life, which would explain why it is a measure of our planet's health! (Note to fickle-self: It took me two sentences to reject my own hypothesis!)

Around mid-May, Jupiter's broadest and darkest brown stripes known as the South Equatorial Belt had disappeared and turned white. It is the planet's most active region and home to its strongest retrograde jet stream. This prompted scientists to look track winds and other atmospheric changes to understand why this happened. They found that the usual downwelling winds that keep the region cloud-free died down and allowed clouds to float over the area and obscure the brown stripes. A few weeks ago, the scientists noticed that the clouds were clearing out again and the brown stripes were becoming visible!

One could interpret the brown-stripes story as an indication that the planet was once healthy and then fell sick and is now restoring its health again. Or one could say it has always been healthy in spite of these changes because the disappearance of the brown stripes is a phenomenon known to take place once every three to fifteen years. What would in fact be unhealthy is if the brown stripes didn't vanish at all! Think of it as the irregular menstrual cycle of the big, gaseous planet, only it is good for it! (Yikes!)

Whatever caused the disappearance of the stripes also made the Great Red Spot darker. The spot is Jupiter's most powerful anti-cyclonic storm, which is about three times the size of earth and is more than three hundred years old. As recently as the year 2000, another red spot about the size of earth called Oval BA (or Red Spot Jr.) was formed on the planet. There is speculation that Red Spot Jr. will converge with the Great Red Spot, since they pass each other about every two years. So far nothing exciting has happened. And should it happen, I would consider it unhealthy! In the same way that should the earth suddenly not be as biodiverse, I would consider that unhealthy!

The fact of the matter is, 99.9 percent of the species that have existed on Earth are now extinct. Moreover, in the same way that Jupiter's brown stripes appear and disappear every few years, species have appeared and disappeared in masses in every new epoch! But, the reason we are whinging about the diminishing biodiversity is because the rate of speciation (creation of new species) has decreased and the rate of extinction has increased dramatically since humans came to be in the Holocene Epoch!

It is estimated that we are losing up to 140,000 species a year, and 30% of all natural species will be extinct by 2050.

Ironically enough, humans have been the only species ever since Earth's creation to have worked on creating new species (unless you consider such dastardly acts such as foxes making out with wolves... or go all the way down to the cellular level and suggest that it is in fact the cells that are recreating themselves into many different species. For now, let's just run with my idea!) But while we are creating new species, we are destroying many more, and for whatever godforsaken reason, our earth isn't able to keep up and "specie-ize" quickly! Call it a writer's block if you will. If you think of species-creation like you do writing technical-code to create robots (and humanoids in the future), you will agree that writer's block is a broad, all-encompassing term that includes all kinds of creative hindrances. So the earth is allowed to have a writer's block as well.

Notice how Holocene sounds so much like Holocaust. Holo comes from the greek work Holos, which means "whole". Cene comes from the greek word Kainos, which means "entirely recent". Caust comes from the greek word kaustós, which means "burnt". Somehow, having learnt the meaning of Holocene and Holocaust, I have to say, the diminishing biodiversity sort of makes me want to believe we are in fact in the HoloCeneCaust epoch - which could mean so many things. We have Seen and it has Cost us. We are entirely recent, and have descended on this earth like a burning fire... so on

If HoloCeneCaust is too long a name, lets change it to HoloTan (haha get it? Sin/Cos=Tan... Baaa)

What comforts me is how humans have created so many fake animals, so much that we now know the fake ones better than the real ones! The other day, I was making a list of my favorite animals on this planet. See brackets for who created them -- I love the dog (humans), cougar (young atheist men), unicorn (god), phoenix (dumbledore) and dwarfs (snow white)

I wonder if we will designate a year for Conciliation. It could be a year where we make peace with whoever or whatever has us riled up. Right now, for you, it would be me!