planet earth looks blue

No They Save the World holiday blog series would be complete without the man who I nominate for the Nobel Peace Prize, Greg Mortenson.  Mortenson is the founder of the Central Asia Institute, a non-profit organization that is literally saving humanity’s grace, one school at a time.  Through the coordination efforts of the men and women he has befriended in Pakistan and Afghanistan, as well as the donors and members of the Central Asia Institute back home in Minnesota, he has built over 78 schools, giving an education to more than 28,000 children.  His students are often young women, knowing that if you educate the girls, you are educating the whole community and invariably raising the standard of living for all.  

What Mortenson has done is unbelievable.  Starting with nothing but determination and a promise he was able to do more than all the NGO’s, than all the millions in foreign and government aid, than our, what is it now? - gazillion billion dollar war on terror, combined to combat the generations long effects of ignorance.  In 1993, on the way back from his climb on up K2, Mortenson, lost and exhausted ran into the small village of Korphe in northern Pakistan,  There the nurmadhar, Haji Ali, welcomed him, offering yak butter tea and a place to rest and recover.  Mortenson made a promise to the children and Korphe’s leader to return to build a school. 

Mortenson began this quest at thirty-five, living out of his car to save what little money he was making.  Through all the adversity that he faced, and continues to face, he never gave up, never decided it wasn’t his responsibility, never said, I am only one man, what can I do?  He turned the dust those little Korphe children were practicing their arithmetic in, into knowledge.  And with that knowledge that he has brought to his 28,000 students, imagine what they will bring to those around them, what they will have to offer the world.  

Mortenson co-authored an account of his journey with David Oliver Relin in the New York Times best-seller, Three Cups of Tea.  

2008-12-24 

With his puffy white beard and rotund belly Captain Paul Watson fits the archetypal image for sea captain.  Co-founder of Greenpeace and the Founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Captain Watson has been a champion for the animal kingdom since he was nine years old, running around the Canadian woods destroying animal traps laid out by hunters.  As a teenager he left home to work on a steamship and then joined the Canadian Coast Guard, where he sailed around the world, learning the ins and outs of the ocean, and establishing a connection with the creatures of our vast otherworld.  By 25, the Captain was risking his life for a pod of sperm whales, facing off a Russian harpoon vessel in his inflatable raft.  There he looked face to face with a dying whale, and vowed to give his life to protecting the beautiful, mysterious leviathans.  He has done just that.  While I am writing this, the Captain is commanding his ship, the Steve Irwin through huge glaciers and ice storms, hunting the hunters.  He and his crew have been chasing a Japanese whaling ship, doing whatever they can to stop them from killing a whale.  So far they have been successful.  

There has been an international ban on commercial whaling since 1986, but several countries continue to hunt whales, Japan, Norway, and Iceland being the biggest culprits.  They whale under a scientific research clause in the moratorium.  Apparently they need to kill the whales for research?  But whaling, just like everything else, has to do with money.  Whale meat is sold in Japan for a high price, and the rest of the creature is discarded.  Sure, they’re are a few tribes remaining in the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere that actually hunt a handful of whales to use both the meat and the blubber, but they are not the ones responsible for wiping out the whale populations to a fraction of what they were before steam-powered ships sailed into the game.  Today almost 1,500 whales are hunted each year, and thousands more are killed in fishing nets.  Ironically, it is in defense of the fish that some people support whaling.  The argument is that the whales consume such a huge portion of the fish populations, that their populations should be thinned down.  So I wonder why the eco-balance was fine when there were hundreds of thousands of whales instead of just the thousands that there are today.

I thank Captain Watson for defending the defenseless.  He has put his life in danger time and time again, desperately trying to conserve the most magnificent creatures on earth.  And while I’m safe and warm, mug of hot cocoa in hand, I’ll raise my cup out to him, sailing through the Antarctic, throwing stink bombs on Japanese whaling ships, promoting peace on earth and goodwill to all.  

2008-12-22